"Montreal" and "The Ottawa" [microform] : two lectures delivered before the Mechanics Institute of Montreal, in January, 1853 and 1854

re
létails
es du
modifier
Br une
‘ilmage

errata
i to

t
9 pelure,
ona

32X

The copy filmed here has been reproduced thanks
to the generosity of:

Library of the Public
Archives of Canada

The images appearing here are the best quality
possibie considering the condition and legibility
of the original copy and in keeping with the
filming contract specifications.

Original copies in printed paper covers are filmed
beginning with the front cover and ending on
the last page with a printed or illustrated impres-
sion, or the back cover when appropriate. All
other original copies are filmed beginning on the
first page with a printed or illustrated impres-
sion, and ending on the last page with a printed
or illustrated impression.

The last recorded frame on each microfiche
shall contain the symbol — (meaning “CON-
TINUED”), or the symbol Y (meaning “END’’),
whichever applies.

Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at
different reduction ratios. Those too large to be
entirely included in one exposure are filmed
beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to
right and top to bottom, as many frames as
required. The following diagrams illustrate the
method:

L’exemplaire filmé fut reproduit grace a la
générosité de:

La bibliothéque des Archives
publiques du Canada

Les images suivantes ont 6té reproduites avec le
plus grand soin, compte tenu de la condition et
de la netteté de l’exemplaire filmé, et en
conformité avec les conditions du contrat de
filmage.

Les exemplaires originaux dont la couverture en
papier est imprimée sont filmés en commencant
par le premier plat et en terminant soit par la
derniére page qui comporte une empreinte
d’impression ou d'illustration, soit par le second
plat, selon le cas. Tous les autres exemplaires
originaux sont filmés en commengant par la
premiére page qui comporte une empreinte
d‘impression ou d’illustration et en terminant par
la derniére page qui comporte une telle
empreinte.

Un des symboles suivants apparaitra sur la
derniére image de chaque microfiche, selon le
cas: le symbole = signifie “A SUIVRE”, le
symbole V signifie “FIN”.

Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent étre
filmés a des taux de réduction différents.
Lorsque le document est trop grand pour tre
reproduit en un seul cliché, il est filmé a partir
de l’‘angle supérieur gauche, de gauche a droite,
et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre
d’images nécessaire. Les diagrammes suivants
illustrent la méthode.

“MONTREAL?

“THE OTTAWA”

TWO LECTURES DELIVERED BEFORE

MECHANICS INSTITUTE OF MONTREAL,

IN JANUARY, 1858 AND 1854.

BY

THOS. C. KEEFER, CIVIL ENGINEER.

MONTREAL:
vy. NTED BY JOHN LOVELL, ST, NICHOLAS STREET,
1854,

MONTREAL.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,
In selecting the name of your beautiful City for the
‘ubject of my remarks to you this evening, I feel some
explanation is due respecting the intended seope of this
uecture. By assuming so comprehensive a title, I by no
means profess ability to do justice to the subject, nor is
it possible, within the limits of an evening’s Lecture, to
‘liscuss a tithe of the subjects which affect Montreal.
For the sake of the many fair faces who have honored
«.s by their presence this evening, I regret that we are
compelled to consider almost exclusively, the weightier
‘atters which concern this goodly City. Not that I would
'y any means intimate that such topics have no interes
‘or ladies—that they are unconcerned about the welfare
* their City—in other words, the prosperity of their hus-
ands, their fathers and brothers. However vulgar the
. servation, none know better than the ladies that it is
i.e annual balance sheet which determines the concerts
and pianos—the summer jaunts and the sea-side bath—
ie furs and the velvets—the silks and the satins—the
irasols and the scent bottles, and all the innumerable and
comprehensible elements which form a material basis
«¢ what is called domestic bliss.
The subject is familiar to you, and you may perhaps
sey to me, “tell us something that we do not know;”
1at have you, a comparative stranger, got to say about
ot City? we know all about Montreal.

4 LECTURE ON

“Know thyself” is a maxim as applicable to communi: :¢
as to individuals, and ifI am guilty of presuming that v1
have overlooked something deeply concerning you, if ins.-
nuate that you do not exactly embrace your full and trax
position—it is not that I arrogate a superior discernme’...
but perhaps offer views suggested by a somewhat gre’ -r
indifference, as a looker on can sometimes determine tic
best move at chess more safely than the players. Life ha:
oftentimes been compared to a game at chess, and in our
day so keen is competition, so well understood are ’
causes of success or failure, that cities must struggle . »
their corporate capacity as well as families for their
subsistence, and play out their part with the same patience
and shrewdness, the same energy and decision which a:
everywhere and in every cause the essentials to succes:
It is an undoubted fact that we all overrate what i:
remote, underrate what is familiarto us. The knowled.:.
which concerns us most is generally the last acquired.
The saying, “ far off cows have long horns,” is bu.
valgar rendering of the divine proverb, “ a prophet is».
\ ithout honour save in hisown country.” Distance lezid :
+ .chantment to our view of other things besides scenc... .
“9 man, it is said, can bea hero to his own va’
cause there is nothing heroic in flannel drawers ana -
nighicap, and yet a man’s a man for a’ that—for Geo...
Stephenson, the father of the Locomotive Engine, afi.
having remarked that he had dined with princes, pe: -:,
and commoners, and also that he had dined off a r« -
herring and gone through the meanest drudgery, sumr.:.
up as follows :— I have seen mankind in all its phases,
and the conclusion I have arrived at is this,—tha:
we were all stripped there is not much difference.” (ui
neighbours and commercial rivals seldom rate themsel\: «
below par, but a lingering remnant of colonial tutela::
must, I suppose, be assigned as an explanation of «'.
fact that there exists in this section of the Provinc
want of confidence in something or in somebody, an« :'
must be either in our resources or in ourselves !

MONTREAL. 5

Perhaps a too greet familiarity, as the copy book says,
excites contempt. I had the fortune or misfortune to be
born within hearing of the roar of Niagara; I saw that
great cataract when so young that! do not remember any
first impressions. I supposed the world was full of such
places and, as a boy, passed on until my attention was
attracted by the praises of strangers. Our children will
weary with forty miles an hour on our Railroads, having
had no experience of the bark canoe and the corduroy
road, and they will daily gaze on the St. Lawrence,
without being impresscd with its surpassing volume.

To appreciate correct:y our own position we should
raise ourselves, if possi .e, beyond the influence of the
smoke of our own City, survey impartially the operations
which are going on round about us, and then determine
whether we will set to work in earnest to improve our
home, or at once change it and make room for more
congenial spirits. One of the great causes of the
rapid development of this continent is the fact that every
man has had it in his power (from the cheapness of land
and facilities of water communication) to gratify his
whims as well as his necessities, and to pitch his tent in
that precise spot where he desired to dwell. This deli-
berate choice of habitation is almost as much a duty as a
privilege, for, if a man finds himself in the wrong place
he becomes discontented, and with true human perverse-
ness too often determines that that place shall not have
the best of the bargain.

The next best thing to finding a ready-made paradise
here on earth, is to make one out of such materials as pre-
sent themselves, as the good wife does out of the humblest
home. A man should not only be contented with his lot,
but he should also make the most of it: and it is incum-
bent upon every one to investigate the resources of his
homestead before he covets his neighbour’s patrimony,
else, like many over nice people, he may go through the
bush and cut the crooked stick at last.

LECTURE ON

It may be objected that these are not the most appiv-
priate subjects for a Mechanics Institute. It is usual, I
know, on these occasions to make the subject a scientific
one, to take up some of the -——isms or the ——ologies,
aid expound them. If I am guilty of any innovation in
meddling with the domestic affairs of this City, my apo-
logy is that having been honored with a request to address
you, I am more anxious to benefit than to amuse you.
We are a practical people, and we live in an eminently
practical age, and what more edifying, what more pro-
fitable subject can the Mechanics of this City discuss,
than the causes which favor or which threaten the pros-
perity of Montreal. The prosperity or adversity of a city
is immediately felt by every interest init. The capitalist
may survive “ hard times,” but the first symptoms of
depressions are felt by the working classes,—and by the
working classes I mean all of us who labor for our sub-
sistence. Wages go down—the brakes are at once put
on—wives and children are denied former comforts and
the limited enjoyment of the present is embittered by
anxious forebodings for the future. If then the working
classes, who form a decided majority of the body politic,
are the most seriously inconvenienced by a stagnation
or reaction in business—an inquiry into the causes which
induce or avert the public adversity is surely most appro-
priate on their part, not only because they are the earliest
and greatest sufferers, but because in their hands rests a
remedy. We live in a country, thank God! where almost
every man has some influence, and if he does not exercise
it to his own advantage, it must be because he does not
understand his own interest.

We too frequently wait to be led—perhaps in the end
by the nose !—forgetting that if we only form a strong bat-
talion politicians innumerable will volunteer to lead us
on to victory and its spoils. Now those enterprises are
always the most irresistible which spring up from the
people—those the most doubtful which come down from
the public bureaux. When, therefore, the mechanics in

MONTREAL. |

a city, or the farmers in the country, become protectionists
or free traders, temperance men or railroad men, it is
amazing with what agility the leading politicians become
convinced and place themselves at the head of move-
ments which they can no longer withstand.

The moral of this is, that if the working classes study
the resources and wants of their districts and devise any
enterprise for its welfare, they can carry it because they
have the votes.

The credit of a city or country is the great engine
through which she is to recover or maintain her position,
and the control of that credit is in the hands of the
majority. It is unfair—nay, more, it is dishonest—that
any portion of a community should evade their quota of
contribution to enterprises in which all are interested,
and from which all will derive proportionate benefit.
The free horses should not be ridden to death. Mon-
real should therefore do as every city, county, town and
township in the United States and Western Canada are
doing—tax all for the benefit of all.

I propose, with your indulgence, to advert to some of the
principal wants of this City—-to take a rapid survey
of its position, and the causes which have operated, and
will operate for or against her, and trust the explanations
made, will satisfy you that I could in no way be more
useful than by drawing your attention to questions which
must sooner or later be discussed; and, however mis-
taken my own views may be, succeed in enlisting your
interests in some course of action, for action is the watch-
word of the day.

Time was when a premium upon exports by the St.
Lawrence, caused by a protected demand for our products
in Britain, gave Montreal a monopoly of the export trade,
not only of Upper Canada, but also of the Western
States; while, at the same time, differential duties forced
nearly all transatlantic imports through your warehouses.
Now, not only has American export by the St. Lawrence
ceased altogether, but transit privileges have been afforded

LECTURE ON

over American routes to Upper Canada, so that she is
exporting and importing through her inland ports at such
a rate as threatens to reduce your City tothe position of a
country town, a mere trading point for a few miles of
surrounding territory.

Again, it is but yesterday that the Green Mountains
were an impassable barrier to the southern valley of the
St. Lawrence, and the products of the industry of this
thickly settled district were concentrated in Montreal.
Now, faith in science has removed mountains, and
numerous Railroads made and making are gathering
where they did not sow, and probably another winter will
see the whole surplus of the South shore carried off to
Portland, Boston and New York, leaving nothing for
shipment on the opening of the navigation.

The mere superiority of New York, as a seaport, over
Montreal and Quebec, immediately upon the cessation
of all protection in favor of the latter, was sufficient to
turn the western tide through the diminutive channels of
the New York Canals, in preference to the more capa-
cious St. Lawrence. This result took place whilst you
were competing upon equal terms, 7. e. when transport by
both routes was confined to water communications,
equally influenced by frost, commencing and suspending
navigation at the same time: but now a more formidable
rival has appeared, one whose operation is not impeded
by frost, whose path is not restricted to vallies of rivers
where water navigation may be made, and who for
nearly five months in the year has no competitor. The
Ogdensburgh Railroad has run past you on the St. Law-
rence, has turned your flank, and intercepted your sup-
plies. This road passes disdainfully by us, preferring to
climb over 1000 feet of elevation, in order to reach a
village west of Montreal. It was natural to suppose that
New York would seek the Western States without calling
here, but when Boston also prefers a western point to this,
when she attaches so little importance to us, and so much
to Wester trade, is it not time for us to value that Western

MONTREAL. 9

trade, and revise our estimate of ourselves. While Bos-
ton offers a continuous Railway to nearly all that is
valuable west of us, New York, by aline from Rome to
Cape Vincent, gives a winter market to Upper Canada
through Kingston. Three or four roads are congregating
on the Niagara river and will penetrate to the most valu-
able parts of Western Canada. Similar lines will be
multiplied, and when the demand arises during the win-
ter, these roads will sweep the Western Province of its
surplus before the ice leaves our wharves. If the coun-
try is emptied while we are curling in the Canal basin,
what have we to export. If Upper Canada exports in
winter, will she not import proportionally during the
same season.

But you may say—we have our canals, and will be
content with the business which they must bring us ;—
but let us look at this.

Quebec exports our timber, because rafts can go there
cheaper than vessels can come after them, and because
tide water assists the loading. Montreal has hitherto
exported most of the agricultural produce, and imported
nearly all the supplies from sea, because the batteau
and durham boat, and the barge of the Rideau route
could not profitably proceed to Quebec, and tranship-
ment was therefore made here. But this is changed—
the boats which now come down from the West will not
continue to stop here unless you make it their interest to
do so. You cannot yet bring up a ship drawing twenty feet
of water, but hundreds of such can ride in the stream
at Quebec, and there most assuredly Western propel-
lers will meet them and exchange pork and flour for
iron and salt, unless you make that exchange more pro-
fitable here. The possession of our large canals is the
only thing which, since the loss of protection—the aboli-
tion of the differential duties and the opening of the
Inland transit trade between New York and Western
Canada can preserve Montreal. Quebec, come what

may, can stand upon her timber toes. But at the same
B

QPEL EMC TES Hees Se a

eRe

LECTURE ON

time, these canals are instruments which can be wielded
with equal force against as well as for you. It is extreme-
ly fortunate that the completion of the canal was secured
before the repeal of the Corn Laws. It is scarcely probable
they would have been undertaken after that event, and
it is pretty certain that if the St. Lawrence navigation
had been in the state it was prior to the Union, all agri-
cultural exports from Upper Canada, by the route of the
St. Lawrence, would have ceased. The canals have
placed the inexhaustible West within your reach, and
you are nearer to the lakes and can carry between them
and tide-water cheaper and quicker than any other city
in America. But these are advantages which we must
not merely talk about, but prove.

No sooner have we completed the Herculean task of
our magnificent canals, than like all other builders we
find we are not half done. Our competitors on the other
side of the line have not only canals but railroads along-
side of them. The canal is the street and the railway
is the side-walk. Trade and travel can thus keep
company. We have provided for the trade only, and
made nor ovision forthe travel. For nothing is more cer-
tain thant ‘at travel follows trade, because on those routes
where the nost business is done, (as for instance the route
from Albe y to Buffalo,) there there is the greatest travel.
Now, if’ ade and travel are inseparable, we cannot expect
to enjoy nuch of either until our travelling facilities are
improv !. This City has beenby no means backward
in railway enterprises—she has been forward, too forward
literally. It would perhaps have been better for her in this
respect, if she had looked backward—to the West and
North behind her—rather than so much forward toward
Portland and New England. I doubt whether we have
made a good selection in amalgaiating with Portland on
a “ differential” guage. We have, perhaps, thus thrown
the greater capital and influence of Boston in favor of the
Ogdensburgh road, and aided its completion. But it is
natural that Montreal should first attempt the compara-

\

MONTREAL. 11

tively shorter connections with long American lines, than
grapple with the magnificent distances towards the West ;
and the truth must be told, ours is rather an expensive
country to furnish with commercial facilities, particularly
with railways. We only require canals where we have
rapids, but we must have railroads along the whole frontier,
which is of a disproportionate length to the depth of
country behind it. The Province, by a public guarantee
and a trunk line, has undertaken to put a good face on
matters: but we must look after the backing, otherwise
the benefits will be too superficial—we will be all front,
without the proper depth and solidity.

The Trunk Line, though of great public importance,
will probably be so located as to be of but secondary
utility to Montreal. The Western stream will be tapped
at Kingston and Prescott by the Cape Vincent and Ogdens-
burgh Railways. Lastly, one of your best and hitherto
surest customers, Bytown, is slowly but steadily working
her way to Ogdensburgh, and will carry with her the
trade of the Ottawa valley.

Thus, from having been in 1845 one of the most fortu-
nate of cities, possessing almost a monopoly of the imports
of Upper Canada, and having a premium on the exports
of breadstuffs, American as well as Canadian, you are
now assailed on all sides. New York is not only fast
taking your place as the outport of Upper Canada, but
for the trade which still belongs to the St. Lawrence,
Quebec will be assuming the position of a rival; while
the railways of New England and New York are cleaning
out the country before and behind you.

It is a fitting time, therefore, to ‘take stock’ and see
where we stand. Our liabilities to ourselves, to our
children, to the times we cannot evade; we should,
therefore, look into our assets, take a careful and com-
prehensive survey of our position, and determine upon a
course of policy and united action for the future. This
result can only be accomplished by the formation of a
strong and extended public opinion, based upon a thorough

NE PLN ST Gorm

eee

LECTURE ON

investigation. Nearly all great public works, ere and
elsewhere, are to be ascribed to the efforts of a few indi-
viduals generally deemed visionaries, humbugs, or rogues,
by their contemporaries; but, in these latter days, our
wants accumulate so rapidly that we should no longer
wait for the appearance of apostles or champions of pro-
gress to lead us on; this was the feudal, the despotic
system, but if we are capable of governing ourselves, we
ought to be able to prescribe for ourselves and order what
we want.

I will now briefly allude to the more important duties
which are before us, each of which would be a fitting
subject for an evening’s discussion.

First in importance are our Navigation interests. It is
her seaport which Montreal should most highly prize and
most sedulously nourish, and as she labours under some
disadvantages from natural causes, these must be noticed.

Ist. The existence of some obstructions in the channel
in and above Lake St. Peter, prevents the arrival of the
largest class vessels from sea. These obstructions are
fortunately not insuperable, and when we remember that
Glasgow, which at one time was only approachable by
fishing smacks drawing six feet water, now displays in
the Broomielaw some of the finest craft afloat, we have
every encouragement to persevere until Montreal shall
be to Quebec what Glasgow is to Greenock.

2nd. In consequence of the limited frontage between
the shoals under Point St. Charles opposite the Canal, and
the Current St. Mary, there is an insufficient amount of
harbour accommodation, and the value of that we have is
reduced by local phenomena. The rise of water in
winter and the shoving of the ice, prevent the erection
of warehouses on the wharves, and of permanent ma-
chinery for discharging cargoes, so that the commerce of
the port, particularly its business as an entrepot is bur-
dened with a heavy charge for drayage. Thesame local
phenomena prevent us from laying up craft for the winter
in the harbour, thus driving to other ports the population

‘MONTREAL. 13

and outlay required for the winter repairs, and checking
the decent of upper lake vessels as soon as the first
frost sets in. Fortunately, indeed for this City, there is
within reach of it a remedy for this objection. We are
in the same position as at a tide-water port (in conse-
quence of this winter rise of water)—and have the same
need of docks, but we have not the flux and reflux of the
tide to work them with; but we have an abundant supply
of water close at hand, at a sufficiently high level for this
purpose. The Canal basins are docks precisely similar
to the kind which must be resorted to, but, although
these are a great relief to the harbour they will not be
accessible, on account of the shortness of the locks, to
screw-steamers and the largest class of craft which may
be expected at Montreal, and they are moreover no more
than sufficient for the trade of the Canal itself.

We must, therefore, “fence in,” from time to time, as
many acres of the Point St. Charles shoals as may be
required, and fill up the enclosure with water from the
Canal, or from the river above the rapids. No excavation
is required, and these basins may be approached through
the Canal until the arrival of longer or wider craft calls
for the construction of larger locks.

Point St. Charles is the proper point for the Railway
Freight Termini, and for the Railway Bridge: the doeks
in the river at this point would therefore be accessible to
railway tracks, so that the vessels and the railroad cars
can, when necessary, be brought side by side, and
elevators worked by water-power be employed to dis-
charge grain. These facilities should not be confined to
any one railway; it is the best arrangement for all rail-
roads, terminating on either side of the river below the
Lachine rapids. The natural causes we have alluded to,
will always operate largely against both the Champlain
and St. Lawrence and the St. Lawrence and Atlantic
Railroads, in any attempts which they may make to do an
extensive business in connection with the river. Shallow
water, strong currents and the winter rise of the river, make

LECTURE ON

the system of docks or basins such as those at the Canal,
almost indispensible at St. Lambert and Longueuil, but
the high head of water is wanting there. The Portland
road looks to the St. Lawrence for its principal business :
but to conduct this business—particularly the transport
of wheat, corn, barley, &c., profitably, and on terms of
equal competition with rival roads, it is indispensible
that it should be able to have warehouses and elevators
alongside of the craft coming down from the western
lakes. Moreover if these South shore railroads make their
termini in Montreal, they will get rid of the steam tow-
age of deeply laden western craft from the Canal, over
and up to Longueuil and St. Lambert.

Before these roads undertake any extensive expendi-
ture in the river opposite Montreal, it behoves them to
investigate the Bridge question and see whether the ex-
penditure which they propose to make, if invested in a
bridge would not be more profitablyapplied than elsewhere.

The City of Montreal should meet the Bridge question
heartily and liberally, as a matter of self-interest. If the
Railway termini are permanently established on the
opposite shore, and no provision be made for a bridge, the
imperfect mode of communication will create an interest
there, which, instead of being auxiliary, as Brooklyn
and Jersey City are to New York, will be rivals, and
from their perfect communication with the most important
parts of America, South, West, and East, will possess
all the elements of absolute independence. Fortunately
for the interests of this City the local unfitness of the South
shore for a good connection with the St. Lawrence, in
addition to the necessity for an unbroken communication
with the line of Western Railroads terminating in Mon-
treal, bring not only a powerful but a mutual interest to
this Bridge question which guarantees its early achieve-
ment.

The good old City of Quebec has taken alarm at the
railway operations at Point Levi, and has sought for a
bridge, but the fates are against her; and there seems

MONTREAL. 15

nothing for the ancient and modern capital, but emigra-
tion to the South shore, unless indeed she is content with
the North shore timber coves, her citadel, a political
menagerie every alternate four years, and the dining of
American tourists. As the chances for any bridge across
the St. Lawrence, below Montreal, are most remote, and
no more favourable point for crossing exists above us, a
bridge at this place will have the widest support provid-
ed Montreal takes steps to bring that support to it. Now,
the difficulties of crossing the St. Lawrence below Mon-
treal, the distance of the railway from the South shore
between Quebec and Montreal, even supposing the cross-
ing were good, and the great length of time, five months
of the year, during which the large population of the
North shore are closed in, gives Montreal a monopoly, if
she is wise enough to avail herself of it, of the business
of this whole population, including that of the ancient
and honorable City of Quebec herself. The impassable
state of the St. Lawrence at Quebec, will cause all travel
and imports for that city, for five months in the year,
to be made through Montreal, and it will be your own
fault if it is not done through here for the remainder of
the season. The route from Quebec to New York will
be as short by the North shore through Montreal, as that
through Richmond and Sherbrooke, and to the whole
West, still shorter. The North Shore Railroad, when
reversed, becomes not only practicable but highly desira-
ble. Asa part of the Trunk Line, or as a means of giving
an outlet to the intermediate country through Quebec, it
could not be sustained, because Quebec is no market,
and from the state of the river in winter, cannot be put in
communication with a market. But reverse the proposi-
tion and start a road from Montreal, as an extension of
the three roads going South, and of those to be built going
West, and every section of it twenty miles in length as
soon as opened can be properly worked and extended, as
circumstances warrant, or be at once taken up as a
whole. There is great encouragement for Montreal to

16 LECTURE ON

embark in this enterprize, because she need fear no
rivalry, the North shore is a regular cul de sac, and can
never get an outlet or inlet as advantageous as that
through Montreal.

I have said that no more favorable site for a bridge pre-
sents itself above us than can be ‘ound here. But I do
not mean to say that the country cannot be permanently
invaded, at Prescott for instance. By extending piers
froin the South shore to the edge of the channel, steamers
with railroad tracks upon them can ferry loaded cars
between Ogdensburgh and Prescott throughout the year,
whenever necessity arises. The whole St. Lawrence
valley west of us is so exposed to inroads from the
United States, and so contiguous to a highly populous
district on the other side of the boundary, that Montreal
must not anticipate too much from the Trunk Line. But
there is a region west of her, for the trade of which she
can put forth her energies under encouraging auspices.
The valley of the Ottawa above Bytown and Perth, is a
cul de sac, with no outlet above these two towns. It is
well settled, and a good agricultural country for nearly
one hundred miles above Bytown and the most valua-
ble timber region perhaps in the world. It abounds in
minerals, fertile soil, and water power unlimited. The
import trade of this region is greater, for the population,
than perhaps any other part of America; because, not
only must the greater portion of their consumption be
imported, but as the lumbering business is conducted on
the cash principle, and wages are highly remunerative,
the population are more able, and do consume more
and live better than any country population I am ac-
quainted with. I speak from experience when I say that
I never saw elsewhere money more plenty, and the
means of comfort more universally diffused than on the
upper Ottawa. The reason is, that the population in-
stead of being idle during the winter, and consuming
their substances like bears in a hollow tree, are steadily
employed on cash wages.

MONTREAL.

We have said that this valley is a cul de sac. None
but the Voyageurs go through it. But it is a cul de sac
unlike the North shore below, for there the farther you go
after you pass Quebec, the worse you are off. Not so
with the Ottawa; if you only burst the narrow belt
between the upper Ottawa settlements and the broad
expanse of Lake Huron, you are at once on the track of
the Chicago, Wisconsin and Superior trade. Western
produce from Chicago to Michigan and Superior can be
delivered on the Georgian Bay, at a point nearer to Mon-
treal than Hamilton is, as cheaply as it can be carried to
Sarnia or Detroit.

This project may be deemed premature and too exten-
sive; but it is not necessary that it should now be under-
taken as a whole. Over one hundred and fifty miles
from Montreal westward may now be safely under-
taken as a local road; and as far as Montreal is con-
cerned as a matter of necessity and self-preservation.
The Bytown and Prescott road now far advanced will
carry out the Ottawa trade to Prescott where it meets
the Trunk Line, but, as there must be transhipment at
this point in order to come on the Trunk Line which is
of a different guage, the Ogdensburgh route wiil be more
advantageous.

Again, it has been shown that the Railroads on the
South shore, opposite us, will not bring produce into
market, because this produce will find a better market
to the South. The Trunk Line skirting the bank of the
St. Lawrence between Prescott and Montreal draws from
one side only; and as the farmers in the rear must come
out to the front, in order to get the Railroad, they will be
brought so near the Ogdensburgh road, that they may be
induced, particularly during the winter when they have
their best roads, to cross Lake St. Francis on the ice to
the Ogdensburgh line, as they are now doing. That the
business which is brought from above Prescott may be
stopped there or at Kingston, has already been men-

tioned. Again, as the farmers of the interior, between
c

Prema xenh Mn

oo TE Senn EOE ie

18 LECTURE ON

the Ottawa and St. Lawrence, must now come to the
latter for a market and an outlet, their position will not
be improved by a Railroad also on the river ; it will not
shorten their teaming, and, therefore, the influence of the
Grand Trunk in developing this portion of the Province
near Montreal will be feeble. Now, it is of great im-
portance to Montreal that she should have a road which
will traverse an agricultural district, because the con-
sumption of a large city will pay the Railway transport
on every article, even of the coarsest description of agri-
culture, or of the forest, which can be found within one
hundred miles of it. Thus we can bring firewood, hay,
milk, potatoes, lumber, &c., from Two Mountains, or
tlengarry, and the Counties west of there, when we can-
not afford to bring these articles from points west of
Kingston.

The location of the Trunk Line on the front, as a pro-
vincial work for through travel and the mails, therefore
not only justifies but creates a necessity for another line
in the rear, which can neither be called a parallel nor
a competing one: for it will do a business, and create a
business which cannot and will not be done by the
Trunk Road. Such a route is now absolutely essential
for the protection of the interests of this City as a means
of preventing the tide of the Ottawa trade from flowing
toward the St. Lawrence and thus placing it in danger-
ous proximity to the Ogdensburgh road.

If } have succeeded in making myself clear on a
subject so trying to your patience—it will be conceded that
the great Ottawa railroad should forthwith be commenced.
Whether or not, the present favorable position of the
money markets, and the eagerness for investments in all
promising Railroads should be taken advantage of, to
place the whole route to Lake Huron in the market—
does not affect the question. A Railroad from Montreal
up the Ottawa can now be profitably sustained as far as
the counties of Lanark and Carleton. The extension to

Lake Huron must follow sooner or later, nor will it stop
there.

MONTREAL. 19

The four great Lakes—Ontario, Erie, Huron, and
Superior are separated by three peninsulas—at Niagara
—Detroit—and Sault Ste. Marie,—to these points must
all surrounding Railways converge—for at these points
connections and crossings may be constantly maintained.
A railroad terminating on the Georgian Bay would be
confined to its local business, for four or five months in the
year, as is the case now with the Ogdensburgh road ; but if
extended to Sault Ste. Marie and carried over into the
peninsula of Michigan, it could thus penetrate Wisconsin,
Minnesota, and the Upper Mississippi, to all of which it
would be the shortest route to the east, and draw over it
a stream of traffic which can hardly be overrated.

This route, when made, must become one of the great
lines of thiscontinent. It is a route worthy of this City.
If Portland could project and successfully urge forward
a route through the Mountains to Montreal—the latter
with double her population may with confidence cope
with an undertaking not more than double the extent.
The particular and indeed supreme importance of this
route when opened to the Western trade is that it would
place Montreal on the route o1 the great American trade
from West to East and vice vers’. Wherever a town is
by canal or railway wheeled into the line of this trade,
the effects, as at Buffalo, Oswego, and Ogdensburgh, are
immediately perceptible. Montreal would then have the
double advantage of an inland transit as well as a sea

trade.
But it is not pretended that such a railway,—which

would secure the travel and a portion of the trade of the
North West,—would be sufficient to enable us to com-
pete with Buffalo, Oswego, and Ogdensburgh, for the
carrying trade between the East and the West. Those
points have the benefit of our unequalled Inland Naviga-
tion, which supplies such an extraordinary amount of
freight that the quantity which any city which is on this
track may aspire to, is only limited by her enterprise
and means. Whatever vicissitudes or temporary checks

20 LECTURE ON

may befall our sea trade, this inland traffic is ever to be
depended on—and if there be any possible means where-
by Montreal can be placed upon the carrying route
between the manufactures of the East and the consumers
of the West—and between the food producers of the
West and the food consumers of the East, no effort should
be spared to attain this enviable position, in order that
whenever the sea trade is unpropitious we may have the
second string to our bow. Now there is one million of
tons to be sent from the West to the East every year, and
there is one-fifth of a million of tons to be sent from the
East to the West. This commerce does not belong by
right to any one route, the whole of it is open to the com-
petition of Dunkirk, Buffalo, Oswego, Ogdensburgh, and
Montreal, and the last comers appear to be the favourites.
It would seem at first view that Montreal was too
much out of the way to indulge in any expectations of
benefitting by this waterborne traflic between the Eastern
and Western States. In point of distance, it is true, that
starting from Cleveland or Hamilton, the route to New
York is much more direct through Buffalo and Oswego
than via Lake Champlain, but experience is more valuable
than opinion, and the facts that the great majority of the
business done over the Ogdensburgh road is with New
York proves the truth of the old saying, “that the longest
way round is sometimes the shortest way home.” The
reason is that a cargo of flour from the Lakes can reach
New York quicker through Ogdensburgh and Lake
Champlain, with but 66 miles of canal, than through Buf-
falo and Oswego with 363 and 209 miles of canal respec-
tively, because a propeller from Cleveland to Ogdens-
burgh will carry—at eight miles the hour—the load of five
canal boats, which move only about 24 miles the hour.
Now, it is in our power by constructing a canal, to
enable that propeller to proceed directly into Lake Cham-
plain instead of stopping at Ogdensburgh, and thus save
two transhipments and their accompanying damage and
detention—and in so doing, to raise the stock of our St.

MONTREAL. 21

Lawrence Canals to fully double their present value, and
bring one of the greatest currents of commerce within
our reach, As an instance of the effect of having and of
not having an interest in this Western trade—it is sufli-
cient to refer to the fact—that the tolls received on the
Welland Canal are nearly three iimes greater than those
received on the St. Lawrence Canals.

It cannot be denied that there has been some prejudice,
or at least some indifference displayed in relation to this
Canal, in consequence of the proposed point of depar-
ture, Caughnawaga. The entrance of a Canal at Caugh-
nawaga would not benefit that point unless there were
transhipment—and now that a Railroad is there, which
will cause transhipment, any attempt to arrest the desti-
nies of Caughnawaga will be as vain as it would be, on
our part, suicidal. The Canal is now necessary to enable
Montreal to compete with Caughnawaga—to make this
City the depot and entrepot and enable vessels to load
here for Lake Champlain instead of forcing this business
to be done at Caughnawaga.

The great portion of the business of this Canal would
be through trade, which if not invited down here would
remain at and above Ogdensburgh. The benefit to be
reaped by Montreal from the work is chiefly incidental—
and the larger the trade of the Canal the greater will be
these incidental advantages. With such a stream of
shipping, as this Canal properly located would induce, a
large portion of which would be partially laden or in
ballast, you could send up freights to the Western Lakes
at the lowest rates—and at any moment by the aid of the
telegraph, arrest a cargo destined for New York, if re-
quired to complete a contract here. This Canal would
complete your position as a depot or produce market, so
that you could store here either for the Gulf trade and the
Lower Provinces by sea navigation—or for New York
and New England by Inland waters. When once Mon-
treal is placed upon the route between New York and
Chicago, steamers ascending or descending could fill out

22 LECTURE ON

or exchange a part of their cargoes here, and this facility
of trading inland in all directions on the best terms must
exercise a powerful influence over our sea trade and tend
greatly to increase the number of vessels arriving here.
The trade between the Western Lakes, and New York
and New England, together with the Ottawa lumber
trade, must comprise the great bulk of the future com-
merce of this Canal. If Montreal desires to reap the
greatest benefit from this work, she should place it where
it would be most efficient, and to be most efficient it
should be located where it will be most convenient to
this Western and Ottawa trade—neither of which should
be burthened with the additional lockage of the Lachine
Canal doubled—when they have no business to do here.
So far from “diverting trade” from Montreal, this Canal
would simply restore to the St. Lawrence Canals, trade
which has been diverted from them by the Ogdensburgh
Railway. The trade of Upper Canada and the Western
States now finds its way to New York through cheaper
routes than by Montreal. If Caughnawagacan attract it
from Ogdensburgh, and Longueuil cannot do so, surely it is
better for Montreal to get it any where within reach than
to see nothing of it whatever. Even if you were to reap
no incidental advantages it could do you no harm, and
inasmuch as it must give increased impulse to the Ottawa
lumber trade it would enrich the country behind you,—
enrich your customers and thereby enrich you.
Caughnawaga should be treated as one of the future
suburbs of this City. From the St. Gabriel Lock, which
will ere long, be a central point of departure, Caughna-
waga can be reached in about the same time and cost as
Longueuil. There would be no more lockage between
the Sea and Lake Champlain via Caughnawaga, than by
any other route, and in this case, the up trade of iron,
salt, coal, fish, &c., must pass through Montreal, whereas
in the other, it would stop at Longueuil, making that point
quite as efficient a rival as Caughnawaga. So also with
the down trade, I mean that intended for Lake Cham-

MONTRE.AiL. 23

plain—supposing that you could induce it to undergo 90
feet of unnecessary lockage—it would either descend by
the rapids direct to Longueuil, or if it passed down the
Canal, it would do you no more good, than it would do
to Beauharnois or Cornwall.
The same arguments which are used for the Champlain
Canal will apply to the improvement of the rapids,
between Coteau du Lac and Montreal,—with this addi-
tional consideration, that the whole benefits of this expen- |
diture would tell upon both the Sea and the inland trade
of this City. When we reflect that our largest Mail Steam-
ers every day descend from Prescott to tide water with-
out passing through a Canal or Lock, it is wonderful that
we should not sooner have inquired into the causes which
prevent all boats, freight as well as passenger craft,
descending by the river, and thus reduce the time and
cost of bringing cargoes to the seaports. I can speak
from personal knowledge when I say that the impedi-
ments to this unrestricted navigation of the rapids, by all
boats which may reascend the Canals, are utterly insig-
nificant when compared with the eflect to be produced by
their removal. The improvement of the rapids and the
construction of the Ship Canal to Lake Champlain are
works of the very first importance, and would produce
greater results from the expenditure required, than any
other works in the country, perhaps upon the Continent,
and certainly are more worthy of the consideration of the
Legislature than such speculations as the Sault Ste.
Marie Canal.
We have now taken acursory view of some of the leading
enterprises which Montreal should promote in order that
she may build up her commerce upon a more solid and
enduring foundation than one based upon commercial
legislation. Legislative measures are certainly the cheap-
est modes of relief, but when they are contested so as to
partake of the character of class legislation, they are
ropes of sand. Nothing can be more dangerous,—nothing
more hostible to the best interests of this City can be

24 LECTURE ON

devised—than the attempt to confer by temporary Acts
of Parliament commercial advantages upon the seaports
at the expense of the inland ones. To engage in a war
with Upper Canada upon these points would be to alien-
ate your best customer. You cannot fail to be as
unsuccessful in result as you would be unjust in position.

The constitution of the United States prohibits the
levying of greater duties at one port in the Union than
at another. Goods entered at Chicago via Montreal, are
liable to no more duty than those entered at New York.
Instead, therefore, of attempting to force the trade of
Upper Canada by Legislation, through the St. Lawrence,
invite, coax, not only this trade but that of the whole North
West through this river, by making it as free as the Ocean.
Then you will make Oswego, Cleveland and Chicago,
Hamilton, Kingston and Toronto, Inland Seaports, if I
may use the term, and unite them with you in one com-
mon bond of interest.

This indifference upon the subject of the free naviga-
tion of the St. Lawrence is in the Lower Provinces, at
least, almost criminal. Upper Canada, with the power of
selecting New York or Montreal, can afford to neglect
this question. The Lower Province, which will be the
greatest gainer by the measure, appears to attach a value
to the monopoly she possesses, whereas it is a positive
curse to her. Sam Slick tells us of a bear which hav-
ing. seated himself upon the moving log in a saw-mill,
and becoming annoyed with the encroachments of the saw,
embraced it with a characteristic hug until it cut him
through, tumbling a hairy slab of bear’s meat on either
side of the saw log. Now all parties must admit that
the commercial position of the Lower Provinces is chiefly
to be maintained by an increase of Shipping. It is wise
then to “ hug” a system which discourages an increase of
Shipping, and which is cutting usintwo. Have you any
thing to fear from a crowd of American merchantmen in
the St. Lawrence? Why not exclude the travellers of
that country from our Hotels and Steamers? There is as

MONTREAL. 25

much reason in the one course as in the other. Canada
East is Commercial, Canada West is Agricultural; if
like the Northern and Southern States they clash,—the
Union Act may like the U. 8. Senate maintain equality
of representation in the face of inequality of population,
but this will only be submitted to upon the basis of per-
fect commercial equality. Upper Canada will, ere long,
possess double the population ofthe Lower Province, and
and will certainly claim equal rights.

But there is an interest growing up in this country
which will inevitably overpower all others, and overturn
any unequal legislation bearing upon the Inland trade.
The Railways cannot go tosea. The surplus of this
country has for more than one-third of the year no other
market, nor any other outlet toa market, than that to be
found in or through New York and New England; and
it cannot be supposed that this great interest will consent
to be debarred from the international trade inland, even
if the people who were supplied by it were content to
submit to so short-sighted a policy.

I have alluded to a question of public policy because
it is one which most deeply concerns your welfare.
Montreal, while she should never forget her interests as
a seaport, should also recollect that these interests depend
on her ability likewise to maintain an inland trade. If
you are enabled to overcome the deep tide water advan-
tages of Quebec, for transhipment between the Ocean
and the Lakes, it will be because you possess other
advantages which Quebec does not which will enable
you to compete successfully with her. The ability to
bridge the River, the large surrounding area of fertile and
populous country, the junction of the Ottawa with the
St. Lawrence, the proximity of New England with her
millions of consumers, and of the West with its rapidly
increasing millions of producers for whom you may
become the successful caterers,—these conditions will
enable you, by the aid of Railways, to bring about a con-

centration of trade and travel here which is impossible at
D

26 LECTURE ON

Quebec. But if by a mistaken policy you spurn the
inland trade, which is always here always increasing,
and fall back solely upon the fluctuating and uncertain
trade by sea, prospering chiefly from the negative fact
that ships come here when they can find nothing better
to do elsewhere, you will, like Ephraim, be “let alone.”
Before we ask Upper Canada to import through our ware-
houses, we should satisfy her of our ability to discharge
the responsibilities we would assume. How would you
supply from the Ocean your Western nursery in winter ?
Not through the United States, for of course Uncle Sam
would not be long in bottling us up in the route for which
we had evinced so strong a predilection; nor could we
complain, after discriminating against him, if he should
withdraw the bonding and warehousing privileges by
which we make use of his seaports when our own are
useless. How then is Montreal to provide an outlet for
her young and rising family in Western Canada during
the five mortal months of winter? Echo answers—
Hauirax anp QueBec Raitroap !

It is a wiser as well asa more honorable policy to
endeavour to better ourselves by legitimate means rather
than at the expense of others, and experience has shewn
that in free countries no other course can be depended
on. I do not pretend to say that differential duties in
favor of the St. Lawrence will not grant advantages to
Montreal which she does not now possess, but I do believe
they will bring with them disadvantages more serious ;
that while we grasp at the shadow we will lose the
substance. I would prefer directing your attention to
enterprises the beneficial effect of which can neither be
conferred upon you nor taken from you by legislation, and
which, if they do not make you friends, will at least not
add to your enemies, and will be equally useful and
indispensible to you under any system of commercial
legislation. Of what use would differential duties and
increased trade be to you unless your Harbour be enlarg-
ed,—unless vessels of deeper draught can come to your

MONTREAL.

wharves? It is more profitable, therefore, to direct our
attention to objects which we cannot dispense with, and
which will be far more efficient means of attracting and
securing the trade and sympathies of Upper Canada and
the West than engaging in a struggle in which we can
obtain nothing permanent but the ill-will of those whom
it is our interest to conciliate. The very agitation of
schemes which, however mistakenly you may consider
it, are yet sincerely looked upon in Upper Canada as an
attempt at a sort of commercial robbery, will drive West-
erm Canadian merchants in disgust to New York. This
is not a question between Free Trade and Protection,—
neither of which systems as a whole are suitable for us
any more than that the same food would assimilate in the
digestive organs of the infant and the full-grown man.
This is a question between the inland and the seaports—
the former seventy in number, the latter only two,—a
question which it is proposed to settle not by fair and
honourable commercial rivalry but by coercive legisla-
tion.

There are other subjects of interest which time will
not allow me to enter upon, significant of the future that
is in store for Montreal. The water power of the St.
Lawrence capable of driving its millions of spindles
will sooner or later be ca!led iato activity. Our magni-
ficent rapids cannot much longer be allowed to flow use-
lessly to the sea—the admiration of travellers—the toys
and playthings of romantic maidens—the gigantic rock-
ing horses of annual flocks of tourists who come and go
as regularly as the wild geese.

There are also minor wants but not less important, to
be noted. The health of the City calls for an efficient
system of drainage and sewage, for which the topography
is most favorable. You have perhaps escaped the cholera
at the expense of one-third of the City in ashes. ! re is
the only thorough scavenger for a city badly dra..ed:
and it is perhaps fortunate that the same poverty which
causes our early towns to neglect their drainage also

98 LECTURE ON

builds of combustible materials, thus providing the future
fuel for the purifying process.

Your physical wants provided for, the moral ones come
next, although some philosophers—forgetting that the
gospel was not preached to the poor until the lepers were
cleansed, the dead were raised, the blind received their
sight, ile lame walked, and the deaf heard,—would
reverse this proposition.

You need a Public Library. This City is certainly
deficient in this important respect. You also need an
Alms House—a public receptacle for beggars—-where
the idle may be made to work and the impotent be cared
for. Our door bells are ever on the ring—our house-
maids ever on the run to answer the calls of shivering
wretches—and who shall discriminate between the wor-
thy and the unworthy ;—we can refuse non”, for we may
“entertain angels unawares.”

And having done our duty may we not also enjoy
ourselyes—may we not combine the useful with the
ornamental, and while yet the City is young, before it
numbers its hundreds of thousands, set aside public
lungs to let in the light and air of heaven among our
thickening streets—lay off Parks and Gardens to give
new attractions to the stranger,—new recreations to the
toil-worn citizen.

Cannot Nuns’ Island be secured as a Water Park for
the future use of the City? Should not the vacant fields
on either side of St. Catherine Street between Philip’s
Square and the Protestant Orphan Asylum, be laid cut as
a park before they are built over—where the pure air and
the constant breeze drawn round the head of the Mountain
may be enjoyed by a few minutes’ walk from the busy
haunts on either side of McGill Street. And the long-
talked-of Boulevard ? Will not Montreal avail herself of
the magnificent features of the Mountain to have a drive
where the tired mechanic may sport his cab or sleigh
with wife and baby alongside the gay turnout of the
merchant prince, or the high official? Will she not covet

MONTREAL. 299

an attraction which few cities in America can and none
have availed themselves of. Would it not arrest for a
day the tribe of pleasure-seekers who seem to be the legi-
timate descendants of the famous—

Mynherr von Slam,
The richest merchant in Rotterdam,

—and who seem to have inherited his cork leg. May it
not be even possible that the facilities afforded by Rail-
ways will induce many of the wealthy idlers who con-
gregate in New York and Boston to visit us during the
winter, to wrap themselves in our furs and enjoy that
abundance of snow, that keen exhilirating atmosphere
which they so much prize “ down south,” and of which
we have perhaps a surplus.

In conclusion, permit me again to vindicate the pro-
priety of the topics brought under your notice this even-
ing. Is there not a marked change in the general appre-
ciation of what are called public improvements? Is
not the English tongue rapidly girdling the earth ? Cali-
fornia and Australia,—and who is not interested in them
—who has notfriénds there,—having in the duly appointed
time revealed their hidden treasures, America has opened
up the Isthmus of Darien while England is breaking
through that of Suez. America is agitating a Railway
from the Atlantic to the Pacific,—England one from the
British Channel tc the Ganges, from Calais to Calcutta,
passing through Constantinople and the valley of the
Euphrates, with a station at Antioch and a junction to
Jerusalem. In the Ohio basin, in the Mississippi valley,
on the Atlantic slope of the Alleghanies, throughout
Western Canada, from the Sagt.enay to Panama, from
Halifax to San Franciseco—everywhere one subject, the
making of Railways, rules the public mind. Shall we
alone fold our arms until the question is put, why stand
ye here all the day idle? What other city of this popu-
lation has not made, or is not now undertaking all the
practicable routes within her reach ?

Practical mechanics is the hand-maid of Science. The

80 LECTURE ON

Printing Press has distributed the hoarded lore of Time.
The civilization of a country is but another term for the
Arts and Sciences of that country. The Ancients were
the fathers of Astronomy, of Mathematics and Sculp-
ture :—in Euclid, in Archimedes, they had their Bacons
and Newtons but they had not their Watts and their
Arkwrights—nor was the world then ready for them.
One great civilizing engine the Romans understood
and employed—perfect roads. The spread of Christiani-
ty, the first great moral revolution applied to the earth,
devolved upon that age and that empire which alone
of all previous ages and empires possessed the capabili-
ties for giving effect to the Divine injunction,— Go ye
into all lands preach the Gospel to every creature.”” The
broad, hard inimitable highways which radiated from
ancient Rome into every conquered Province between the
Pillars of Hercules and the banks of the Euphrates were
garrisoned up to the very borders of that barbarian cloud
which hung for centuries over the Roman frontier. These
great arteries worked by the heart of the then mistress of
the world pent up the flood of barbarism until Christianity
had taken root, until it alone survived the wreck and tri-
umphed over those fierce intruders who had just broken
the secular power of hitherto invincible Rome.
Constructed to convey the mail clad cohorts, the relent-
less Eagles, and the swift vengeance of the Roman
Senate into revolting provinces, these noble roads were in
the providence of God made the efficient and indeed the
indispensable means of waging a spiritual warfare, and
bore with jealous care the swift footed messenger of the
Gospel of peace beyond the lofty Alps and the far distant
Pyrenees. And may not we be entering upon those latter
times, when many shall run to and fro and knowledge
shall increasc? and may not the vast, the almost incre-
dible extensicn of the Railway system, the Electric Tele-
graph, and the Ocean Steemer over all the Christian
Earth, be a forerunner,—a necessary and an indispensa-
ble forerunner—to that second great moral revolution, the

MONTREAL. $1

Millenium,— when the sword shall be beaten into a
ploughshare and the spear into a pruning hook ;—when
nation shall not rise up against nation, neither shall there
be war any more.”—It may be a heresy—but is there not
reason for a belief that the regeneration of the dark cor-
ners of the earth is to be accomplished, not through the
pulpit alone, nor by sectarian schools,—nor yet the phi-
losophy of cheap literature—nor by miracles—but by a
practical elevation of the people, to be brought about by
a rapid development of Commerce and the Arts. Igno-
rance and prejudice will flee before advancing prosperity.
Wherever a railway breaks in upon the gloom of a
depressed and secluded district, new life and vigour are
infused into the native torpor,—the long desired market is
obtained—labour now reaps her own reward—the hitherto
useless waterfall now turns the laboring wheel, now
drives the merrier spindle, the cold and hungry are
now clothed and nourished; and thus are made sus-
ceptible converts to a system the value of which they are
not slow to appreciate. The pulpit will have then its
grateful listeners, the school its well filled benches,—the
stubborn opponents of wordy philosophy will then sur-
render to a practical one the truth of which they have
experienced.

Let then the bigot, the theorist, and the agitator ply
their unprofitable trade,—let them lay the flattering unc-
tion to their souls that they alone are engagedin the high
and holy cause of moral elevation. Let them commis-
serate the apparently low aims, the ceaseless toil and
drudgery of the practical mechanic ;—but know for a cer-
tainty that bigotry and intolerance, agitation, and the
highest order of speculative philosophy have existed in
the midst of starving and uneducated masses ;—that it is
the Steamboat and the Railroad which has peopled the
recent wilderness of the North West—and by granting
facility of access and by securing a reward to labor, have
diffused a degree of comfort and prosperity, unprece-
dented in history. Every new manufacture, every new

82 LECTURE ON

machine, every mile of railway built is not only of more
practical benefit, but is a more efficient civilizer, a more
speedy and certain reformer, than years of declamation, agi-
tation, or moral legislation. And shall not the mechanic,
ever the pioneer of progress, lift up his eyes from the
“work bench and look ahead? Has he, the humble
instrument in a mighty revolution, no right to think on
such things? “Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that
treadeth out the corn !”

I venture to believe that, as mechanics we may
devote some moments to a consideration of the tenden-
cies, the prospects, and the utility of the great enterprises,
which give character to the age, and in the execu-
tion of which we are in a greater or less degree the
agents—that this feeling of being useful in our day and
generation will while away with a diminished degree of
weariness the many hours of labor—that as you ply the
busy hammer or wield the heavier sledge some of you
may dream that you are fast driving nails into the coffin
of prejudice, of ignorance, of superstition and national
animosities ; that as you turn down the bearings or guide
the unerring steel over all the 500 parts of a locomotive
engine, fancy will picture you cutting deep, and smooth,
and true, into obstacles which have so long separated one
district, one family, one people from another—and that
you may exult in the reflection that those huge drivers
will yet tread out the last smouldering embers of discord,
that those swift revolving wheels—by practically anni-
hilating time and space and by re-uniting the scattered
members of many a happy family—will smooth the
hitherto rugged path, fill up the dividing gulf, break
through the intervening ridge, overcome or elude the ups
and downs of life’s chequered journey, and speed the
unwearied traveller upon his now rejoicing way.

Monrreat, January, 1853.

THE OTTAWA.

Lapirs anD GENTLEMEN,

I have selected for this evening’s lecture one comer of
Canada more on account of its obscurity than for its
prominence—a district of whizh I will venture to say
Canadians, generally, know less than of many foreign
countries,—one which few have ever seen, and which
very few have examined. The reason of this ignorance
is soon explained. Many persons have supposed that
Bytown, the capital of the Ottawa, was so named
because everybody gave it the go-by; and indeed the
whole Ottawa valley, an off-shoot from that of the St.
Lawrence, is so removed from the trunk line of travel
that it has escaped the eye not only of Canadians proper,
but of those indefatigable and ‘through by daylight’
tourists who “see Canada” from Niagara to Quebec in
thirty-six hours. The requisites for an examination of
the Ottawa are :—a strong constitution, and a still
stronger digestion,—the stomach of a locomotive and
the appetite of a saw-mill,—abilities to ride without a
saddle,—to walk after as well as before dinner,—to
paddle a bark canoe, run a rapid, and swim when your
canoe is swamped in a “cellar,” or riddled on a rock.
You must be able to eat salt pork and petrified biscuit,
and drink tea which would peel the tongue of a buffalo ;
or if you can get far enough away, and are something of

E

34 LECTURE ON

a vegetarian, you may try tripe de roche with Labrador
tea for an alterative. If you “tho’ hating punch and
prelacy,” are yet like

.the Puritan divine,
Who followed after Timothy and took a little wine,

it must be high wines, 40 0. p., condensed for conveni-
ence of portaging, and in color and in character veritable
blue ruin. If a teetotaller, when you havn’t time, or
wood, or dry weather enough to make a Molly of your-
self and “ put the kettle on,” you have the limpid waters
of the Ottawa conveyed to your mouth in the “ gum dish,”
a tin receptacle for a mixture of rosin and tallow where-
with the seams of your bark canoe are payed, or—as I
have seen some voyageurs do—in a well-worn shoe,
another instance of the universality of the adage, “‘ there’s
nothing like leather.” If you would sleep on a swelter-
ing night in June, nothing short of chloroform will render
a novice insensitle to the melody of those swamp sere-
naders, the mosquitoes, or the tactics of their blood-
thirsty ally, the black fly, who noiselessly fastens upon
your jugular while the mosquito is bragging in your face.
Two remedies are at your service, either of which some
perscrs will be found captious enough to consider worse
than the disease. The first cure is the one applied to
hams—smoke yourself until your eyes are like burned
holes in a blanket, and until you have creosote enough in
your mouth to cure a toothache. The second is to smear
all your assailable parts with Canadian balsam, until
after a nighi’s tossing in your blanket, you have wool
enough on your face and hands to make you look as
well as feel,—decidedly sheepish.

But do not consider me as desiring in the slightest
degree to damp the ardour of any enthusiastic Tourist up
the Ottawa. I am only relating the experience of the
improvident or reckless traveller—and such are the
well-known characteristics of human nature that the
slight inconveniences [ have hinted at will only inflame
the zeal of romantic youths and maidens bent upon “ see-

THE OTTAWA. 35

ing the elephant.” If you store well your hampers and take
camp followers enough to carry them, and if you don’t
lose them by upsetting your canoe in a rapid, you may
avoid the pork, &c.—and if you are expert at throwing
a stone or a fly, you can bring down a partridge, or bring
up a trout for an occasional change of diet. Where
cooking utensils are necessarily limited, the fish, flesh
and fowl,—or, speaking more precisely, the trout, pork
and partridge are sometimes boiled together in the
solitary pot; but a more commendable course is to fry
the fish and grill the others. Expedition is the maxim of
all sylvan cookery, and as plucking the feathers off a
partridge would be too great a tax upon the time and
patience of the voyageur, the method most in vogue is to
run your hunting knife round his throat and ancles and
down his breast, when taking a leg in each hand, and
pressing your thumbs into his back, you pop him out of
his skin as you would a pea from its pod. Then make
a spread-eagle of him on a forked twig, the other
extremity of which is thrust in the ground, and after
wrapping a rasher of bacon around his neck and under
his wings, as ladies wear a scarf, you incline him to the
fire, turning the spit in the ground, and you will have a
result such as Soyer might be proud of. When your
other avocations will not afford time even for the skinning
process, an alternative mode is to make a paste of ashes
and water, and roll up your bird therein with feathers
and all the appurtenances thereof, and thrust the perform-
ance in the fire. In due time on breaking the cemented
shell, (which is not unlike a sugared almond,) the feathers,
skin, &c., adhere to it, and you have the pure kernel of
poultry within.

With this imperfect allusion to some of the peculiari-
ties of the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties, I pro-
ceed to my subject; and first I would mention that a
gentleman in every way well qualified for the task, (Mr.
Turner,) has, I understand, spent some time upon the
Ottawa for the express purpose of giving to the public

36 LECTURE ON

authentic information about that interesting region—and
a description of its great feature, the lum’ er trade. He
has been aided by the Government and has had access
toofficial documents ; his work, therefore, when published
cannot fail to be a valuable addition to the literature of
the country. My own knowledge of the Ottawa is, I
regret to say, inferior to my opportunities being derived
from frequent trips in summer and winter upon the main
stream—while in charge of the Government works for
the improvement of the timber navigation—to a distance
of about 300 miles, and upon a few of the principal
tributaries—some of which are 200 to 300 miles in
length; as well as from explorations of the settled por-
tions of the country in relation to roads and bridges.

The present seems to me a favorable time for turning
our eyes toward this ¢erraincognita. Magnificent schemes
of railway development are on foot ; no less than five char-
tered Companies are struggling for the honor or the profit
of building Railways for the Ottawa. Capitalists with
no end or beginning of money are scuffling over stock
books for the control of the direction, or are sympathising
with municipalities in order to relieve them of their
bonds ; last of all, the province, suffering from a plethora
of the public purse, is beginning to canal the Ottawa in
the middle, in order that it may be compelled to work
out at both ends, and thus effectually secure the reduction
of the inflammatory symptoms in the Treasury, just as a
physician gives you ipecacuanha in order to starve you
into a cure.

The Ottawa River from its confluence with the St.
Lawrence to its source, like the latter, consists of a
series of wide expanses, or lakes, connected by rapids
of greater or less length. It has about twenty first class
tributaries besides a greater number of inferior ones ; each
of these tributaries has its numerous branches, and these
last their forks; and, as the sources of the greater num-
ber of the tributaries, branches and forks are upon nearly
the same elevation with that of the parent stream, (which

THE OTTAWA. 37

is about seven hundred feet above tide water) you can
form some idea of the countless number and variety of the
cataracts, chites and rapids—falling from fork to branch,
from branch to tributary, and from this last to the main
river, through varied geological formations and amidst
every variety of scenery—which characterize the broad
valley of the Ottawa. The main stream is supposed to ran
about six hundred miles, and its longest branches about
half this length. Though shorter than many American
rivers—few can vie with it in average breadth, or in the
volume and purity of its dark but transparent waters.
Unlike ordinary rivers, the higher you ascend it the wider
it becomes ; this description applies to it for two hundred
and eighty miles. Two hundred miles above its mouth
it contains an Island over twenty miles long and from
five to ten miles in breadth; and fifty miles farther,
another of about the same dimensions; beyond this it
runs for about twenty-five miles at the base of a chain
of mountains, with a breadth exceeding a mile, and a
depth of over one hundred fathoms. At its mouth the
Ottawa forms the Island on which this City stands and
completely encircles us so that, although we are upon
the St. Lawrence, not a drop of its blue water washes
our shore from Point Claire to Bout de l’Isle, a distance
of forty miles. Not a fourth part of the waters of the
Ottawa enters the St. Lawrence above us, yet this is
sufficient to drive the latter to the south shore—whilst
the remainder, passing behind us, forms a very large
Island in what is strangely called the Little River.
Departing from the St. Lawrence, by Lake St. Louis,
we pass into the Ottawa by the rapids of St. Anne,
alluded to in Moore’s Canadian Boat Song, and after
passing a few picturesque islands and a veritable ruin,
that of the Chateau Brilliant or old Fort Senneville, a
relic of the Indian wars, we immediately encounter the
beautiful Lake of Two Mountains, where the once
powerful and warlike Iroquois have buried the hatchet
with their Algonquin foes, both tribes now occupying a

38 LECTURE ON

single village—divided only by a street,—and worshipping
the Great Spirit under a common roof. The passage
between Lake St. Louis and that of the Two Mountains
is effected by a lock at St. Anne, of the same dimensions
as those upon the St. Lawrence Canals, that is, forty-
five feet in width. This lock has a depth in it of six
feet at low water, but, most probably for the purpose of
gnarding against the grounding of any vessel in the
lock, where there is no room to spare, the Board of
Works have taken the precaution to leave shoals both
above and below it, on which there is a depth of only
two and a half feet at lowest water. Upon these shoals
there is ample room and verge enough for all lazily dis-
posed craft to rest, or scrape the barnacles off their
bottoms. At the head of the Lake of Two Mountains
there are but few miles of river proper before we are
brought up, at Carillon, by the Rapids of the Longue
Sault, some twelve miles in length. These are surmounted
by three distinct canals, an effort of the Imperial Govern-
ment,—the two lower of which have locks of thirty-
three feet in width, but the upper one, of only twenty-
four. This useful provision serves to prevent the passage
of any boat which might be too large to get through the
forty-six locks of the Rideau Canal, between Kingston
and Bytown, all of which are thirty-three feet in width.
From the head of the Longue Sault Rapids at Grenville,
to Bytown, the Ottawa is without lakes and is navigable
for boats with about five feet draught at lowest water.
This portion of the river is forbidding to the tourist in
consequence of local phenomena. Six large tributaries
from the north and two from the south pour their freshets
into this reach, and swell the volume of the main stream
to a height of twenty feet or more before it can be dis-
charged by the rapids of the Longue Sault. The conse-
quence is that the interval lands are subject to inundations
which, although fortunately not of duration long enough
to destroy the forest trees, effectually prevent settlement
or cultivation.

THE OTTAWA. 39

Arriving at Bytown, the traveller is at once struck with
the total change of scene. Waterfalls, cascades, rapids
and whirlpools, bold cliffs overlooking square miles of
variegated forest, and picturesque islands revealing here
and there a placid pool, or shiny thread of intermediate
water, charm and rivet the beholder ; whilst works of art
of no mean order, happily as well as usefully situated, give
life and vigor to the scene. The most interesting because
the most unique of the passing scenes is the descent of
timber in the latter part of May through the slides, which
are artificial rapids under due control. The rude and
insecure manner in which the sticks of timber are
retained in a crib, although sufficient to carry them in
safety through the navigable rapids, forbids the attempt
to pass them down the chites or higher falls. At these
places, therefore, the perpendicular falls are converted
into inclined planes, in which broad wooden trougis are
placed, sufficient to admit a crib of timber twenty-four feet
wide and carrying water enough to float it down, so that the
lumberman is subjected to no more detention or expense
here than at a navigable rapid. Before the construction
of slides the rafts were broken up into their original
elements, and stick by stick were consigned to the tender
mercies of the chite. A certain pereentage was left stick-
ing in the clefts of the rock; what came through was
more or less damaged by abrasion and was caught in a
boom below the fall and then re-rafted. This process
was repeated at every point where there was not a crib
navigation ; and you can form some idea of the value of
the slides from the fact that lumbermen were detained
two and three weeks, and lost ten per cent. of their tim-
ber, at points where the detention now is not as many
days, and the loss, nothing. Two years were required to
bring rafts to market which now reach it in one, while
many which could not get into Quebec in time for the
Fall fleet now reach it so as to load the Spring Ships.
Bytown is the head of navigation on the Ottawa: there
are two lakes higher up upon each of which a steamer is

40 LECTURE ON

plying, but these boats are confined to the levels in which
they were launched. The first of these lakes approaches
within six miles of Bytown and is about eighy feet above
the level of the Ottawa atthe latter place. It extends
upwards about thirty miles when it is terminated by the
Chats Rapids,—a crescent-like dam of primitive rock
stretching across the Ottawa nearly three miles in extent
--over which the river breaks at high water in more
than thirty independent chiites of every conceivable form ;
some divided by large rocks, others arched over by the
leaning forest trees under which the white foam of the
rapid plays in lively contrast to the dark green foliage
above, the whole presenting a scene of picturesque beauty
to which the oldest voyageurs are not insensible. The
Chats falis and rapids, three miles in length, unite the
Chaudiére and Chats lakes, the latter fifty feet above the
former. It is upon these two lakes wat the steamers
before mentioned are plying; the connection between
them, over the Chats portage, is maintained by a railroad
which is one of the curiosities of the Ottawa. The prin- .
ciple of construction was probably derived from an early
edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, viz., that arailway
should be straight and level. The high water level of the
upper lake was made the starting point, and, inasmuc!:
as the difference of level between the two is fifty feet, the
terminus at, or rather over the lower lake was correspond-
ingly exalted. This slight inconvenience is overcome by a
winding apparatus for hoisting the pork and flour from
the lower steamer into the cars, whilst for the accommoda-
tion of the live freight, pigs and passengers, a convenient
staircase is provided. The route of the railway where
not in swamp is generally upon a solid foundation of
granite rock, the profile of which is similar to that of a
camel’s back. As earth of any kind is a rarity and tim-
ber a drug—in order to fill up the valleys a vegetable
embankment is resorted to, consisting of hemlock logs
built up after the manner of an Ohio corn-crib, or that of
a covntry residence for pigs. The motive power employed

THE OTTAWA. 4l

is—horses, the track— single, the weight of rail—consider-
ably under the Grand Trunk standard, and the speed—
decidedly safe. Whatever its engineering merits, this
pioneer railway is a great boon to the traffic, and a hem-
lock monument of the enterprise of the Ottawa, for it
has cost as much as an equal number of miles of the
Caughnawaga road.

The steamers which support this Railway are sub-
stantial and commodious vessels, built of iron, and make
three trips per week. The upper steamer ascends the
Ottawa as high as Portage du Fort, six miles above the
head of the Chats Lake. Passengers, leaving Bytown early
in the morning, cross the Suspension Bridge and, after
driving over seven miles of excellent road, breakfast on
board the first steamer at Alymer, and arrive at the Chats
before noon :—transferred to the Railway, and thence to
the upper steamer, on board of which dinner is served,
they reach Portage du Fort sometime before night.

Although it has not yet been found necessary, in order
to supply the demands of commerce, to run the steamers
on the Chats and Chaudiére Lakes twice a day, or even
once a day—or to lay down a second line of rails over
the Chats Portage, the Province has determined to con-
struct a grand canal on the scale of the St. Lawrence
navigation, and £50,000 has been appropriated to com-
mence with. No provision having heen made for connect-
ing the Chaudiére lake with Bytown—another six or seven
miles of canal and sixty feet of lockage must be con-
structed before any of the expenditure can be made avail-
able ; and not only the Grenville, but the Carillon and
Chute A Blonde Eau Canals must be enlarged before the
full benefit can be reaped. The object of this expenditure
can only be to give an outlet to the commerce of the
Chats lake—a sheet of water something less than thirty
miles in extent—upon which one boat cannot find em-
ployment half her time. The whole population of the
Ottawa above the Chats is under 20,000 ;—there are

no agricultural exports to bring out—and ail the imports
F

42 LECTURE ON

are now bome by atri-weekly steamer. A Railway is
under contract from Brockville to Arnprior—a port on
the Chats lake, and another is chartered from Bytown to
the same point. If these roads are made the steamers
cannot be sustained on their present route—but must
succumb to the ignoble fate of quondam iavorites, and
tow rafts. Suppose that the navigation of the Ottawa is
improved by canals so that boats may pass up from By-
town to the Chats lake—at acost to the Province of some
£400,000, what public benefit commensurate with such
an outlay can be counted upon? The Railways will
take up all that is to be taken up—and what is there to
bring down? One article only—sawn lumber ; square
timber will never use the canals so long as the slides
exist. If the Chats lake can be reached by boats, un-
doubtedly the owners of water power on the Mississippi,
Madawaska and Bonnechére rivers—as well as at Por-
tage du Fort, and perhaps higher up, would erect saw
mills and ship their lumber. In this the river would have
the competition of the Railways whenever the mills were
nearer to the latter than the Ottawa. In winter, spring
and autumn the canal would be “no where’ as the
jockeys say, and the railways must then do the whole
business.

There are saw mills on the Quio, (a tributary entering
a little below the Chats,) the deals from which run through
the slides at Bytown ; and new mills are in progress at the
Chats, below the proposed canal, the manufacture of
which must reach a market through, these same slides.
If the slides can pass deals at all, they certainly can do it
more speedily and economically than any locks, and the
question suggests itself, What use is there for a canal at
all ?

But if a canal be justifiable upon any grounc,..—why
not begin at the beginning? After the deals have passed.
the proposed Chats Canal, they must run the Bytown
slides: why not begin the Canal at Bytown and extend
upwards to Aylmer ? for then all the deals manufactured

THE OTTAWA. 48

by the Chats water power could go to market in boats.
Fitzroy Harbor would then be a “harbor,” and the
County of Lanark could reach this point as conveniently
as that of Amprior; thus this one canal would be an
outlet for the most important part of the district above
Bytown.

The saw mills would of course be placed as near the
Ottawa as possible, but as the timber on the banks of the
latter has been removed many years since, the logs must
be obtained on the tributaries many miles distant from
the mills, and be brought down by water. Now if a
saw-log can be brought down the tributary, 2 fortiori,
as mathematicians say, it can be continued on down
the main stream. Hundreds of thousands of these logs
we know have been taken from the Ottawa to Quebec.
The logs, therefore, may be brought to points on naviga-
ble water below Bytown at a nominal expense, where
they can be sawed and shipped ; and I submit, respectfully,
that Mahomet should come to the mountain—the saw log
be brought to the head of navigation, instead of the head
of navigation being moved up to the saw-log. Doubtless,
it would be an advantage to the Upper Ottawa to have
the logs sawed at home, but if this principle is followed
out we must not only canal the Ottawa but also canal
every tributary of the Ottawa. The Railway, however,
will cause the erection of saw mills, and, as a mere
financial question, it would be far wiser for the Province
to undertake to pay the extra cost of transportation by,
railway to a navigable point, of all lumber which would
be shipped from the Upper Ottawa, than build the canals;
for, if a toll is put on the canal to make it productive, the
railway will be the cheaper route.

But it may be presumed that it is the intention of the
Province to open the Ottawa throughout, from tide water
to Lake Hurcn,—and that, as a highway for Western
trade, the artificial navigation of the Ottawa may be
defended. If the Ottawa were rendered navigable for
craft which navigate the Western Lakes, there is no.

44 LECTURE ON

doubt that it would secure a share of that great trade,
—but even in that case the great amount of lockage, and
its attendant risks, the isolation of the route, and the
shortness of the navigable season in high latitudes and
elevated waters, would neutralize the saving in distance.
A cargo detained by accident on the St. Lawrence route
has the choice of many markets—but imprisoned by
accidents to locks or dams in the Upper Ottawa, it is
valueless. There are, however, physical obstacles, to
the navigation of the Ottawa for lake draught, such as rocky
shoals, and its improvement on any other scale will end
in failure as complete, but far more disastrous to us, than
that of the Rideau. The Rideau Canal, with a local
trade and the chance for the through traffic, does not pay
expenses,—although nearly twenty years in operation.
We now refuse to take it off the hands of the Imperial
Government as a gift, unless accompanied by a hand-
some bonus in the shape of more convertible property—
lands. The lateral canals of the State of New York
do not yielda nett revenue. The Genesee Valley Canal,
although traversing one of the finest agricultural districts
of ihe United States, is a dead failure. It is only where
there is a heavy traffic and where long lines of com-
munications are opened up without trans-shipment, that
Canals can be expected to pay a dividend or compete
with railways. But to show that an Ottawa route by
water communication to the West, is not only uncalled
for, but indefensible, it is sufficient to allude to our St.
Lawrence Canals which do not pay two per cent. on a cost
of a million and a third ;—what then is to be expected
from a rival route which must cest four or five mil-
lions? If the Grenville Canal were enlarged and the
water deepened at the St. Anne’s lock, the Ottawa would
receive an immediate and substantial benefit, and some-
thing would be undertaken with a prospect of completion.
But it requires no prophet to forsee the result of our
madcap expenditure at the Chats.

THE OTTAWA. 45

Under the good old log-rolling system which prevailed in
the Upper Canada Legislature before the Union, such works
as the Welland and St. Lawrence Canals could only ob-
tain votes upon the principle of perfect reciprocity. While
the Eastern and Western sections were pulling for the St.
Lawrence and the Welland, the Midland district pressed
upon them the importance of the improvement of the
Trent, and the opening of the navigation from the Bay of
Quinté through the back lakes behind Peterboro to Lake
Huron. The River Trent falls 365 feet between Rice Lake
and Ontario ; and having succeeded in getting an appro-
priation the Commissioners commenced, as we are now
doing at the Chats, halfway up the hill, and built a
handsome cut stone lock with gates and chains com-
plete. Those gates have never been opened. Nothing
larger than a bark canoe or wooden pirogue has hove
in sight since the coping stones were laid. Between this
lock and Ontario there are rapids with a total fall of 115
feet, and between it and Rice Lake, falls and rapids
amounting to about 245feet. It was presumed no doubt,
that by hanging this lock up upon the side of the hill, the
mortar would be dry before it would be required, and
that this judicious commencement would force the com-
pletion of the chain of communication by securing the
early removal of the slight intervening obstacles. But
time brought adversity, and with it reflection; it was
found preposterous to persevere in the scheme of the Trent
navigation, and that of the Inland waters—all has been
abandoned after drowning a great many acres of fine
land and making a few mill sites. So we will do upon
the Ottawa ; we will make a few mill sites and improve
the value of some others. We will drown some lands,
worth just enough for an arbitration, and after a while
we will sell off our unfinished locks for saw-mill foun-
dations, and turn over our waste weirs to the shingle
weavers.

A. singular contradiction to the intended scale for the
Ottawa navigation is found in the headway proposed by’

46 LECTURE ON

the Grand Trunk Railway, where it crosses the only
navigable outlet of the Ottawa at St. Anne. It is under-
stood that the Commissioners of Public Works have ap-
proved of a plan of permanent bridging at this point, which
only leaves about thirty-five feet in height between the
bridge and the water. This is insufficient for the barges
and steamers which now pass there, but if an archway oi
thirty-five feet be high enough to let out the Ottawa trade, it
is certainly absurd to construct locks 200 feet in length for
such a height of craft. Looking forward to the manu-
factures which may be expected to spring up upon the
water power between Carillon and Grenville, at Bytown
and intermediate points, such a permanent evil as that
of a low bridge at Ste. Anne ought not to be inflicted
upon the Ottawa. While on this subject, I would say
that the proposed headway for the bridge over the St.
Lawrence at this City, which I understand to have
received the official sanction, is an extraordinary and an
unnecessary encroachment on the navigation interests of
the largest river in North America.

Not the least extravagant and ill-considered part of the
scheme is the selection of the St. Lawrence Canal
scale of locks, which will involve the rebuilding of the
excellent locks at Carillon and Chite 4 Blond Eau, which
are the same size as those upon the Rideau, and abun-
dantly large for the Ottawa trade.

Resuming our journey up the Ottawa, we pass out of
the Chats Lake and enter the river at “ Les Chenaux”’
—rapids which, though insignificant in power, proved too
much for the pioneer steamer of the Chats Lake—the
never to be forgotten George Buchanan. That swift and
powerful steamer—as the advertisements read—by skilful
seamanship, and a pressure of steam which, had not the
eylinder been well ventilated, might have proved disas-
trous, did succeed in mounting the angry rapid during
the season of low water, but a smart shower, by raising
the river, was sufficient to damp her ardour, bring her
alongside the island and transfer passengers and: freight

THE OTTAWA. 47

into flat bottomed boats,—to the slow but certain
influence of a “ white ash” breeze. Few who have ever
had the good fortune to make a trip on the “ George
Buchanan,” when the subsiding waters for the first time
of the season encouraged her daring skipper to brave the
terrible chute can have forgotten the excitement of the
scene. As she neared the dreaded channel, the passen-
gers gathered in clusters on the forecastle—the fireman
selected his choicest fuel—the engineer screwed up his
slackening bolts and greased his ricketty bearings—the
captain stood by his bell. By judicious steering and
hard paddling the lower current was surmounted, and the
little craft glided into the eddy which led up to the very
vortex of the rapid ; suddenly the engine ceased its revo-
lutions—an ominous silence reigned throughout the
boat, as taking advantage of the eddy which bore her
slowly up to the scene of her laurels or her shame, the
boiler gathered steam for the approaching contest. The
engineer rolls up his sleeves—the fireman pokes the fire
—the captain eyes his enemy—and when the friendly
eddy is exhausted nervously rings the bell for “ full
steam.” The engineer throws off the eccentric and seizes
a lever in each hand—for full steam cannot be depended
upon from the wabbling shaft or crazy eccentric :—as the
cylinders are charged, a cloud of steam fills the waist of
the boat, looming through which a spectral figure is seen
frantically working the steam port valves as if life
depended on the result. If the feat is performed and the
little boat has secured a safe position above the rapids—
the captain comes down from his perch—the fireman
pops up through his hatch, and the engineer rushes, out
from his misty den, when, looking back with grim satis-
faction. on the vanquished waters, mutual congratulations.
are exchanged on the forecastle.

But far be it from me, at least, to disparage the George
Buchanan: and all the recollections of an Ottawa rapid
are neither pleasing nor humorous,

LECTURE ON

There is no flock, however watched or tended
But one dead lamb is there ;
There is no fireside, howsoe’er defended,
But has one vacant chair ;
The air is filled with farewells to the dying,
And mournings for the dead,
—and so it is with the Ottawa—-there is scarcely a
rapid the white swells of which have not proved a wind-
ing sheet for the bold voyageur, or reckless lumberman ;
there is scarcely a portage, or cleared point, jutting out
into the river where you do not meet with wooden crosses,
on which are rudely carved the initials of some unfor-
tunate victim of the resistless waters. And it was owing,
under Providence, to the circumstance of the George
Buchanan’s being unable to ascend the Chenaux, that I
escaped, when—in running that rapid during a heavy
snow storm late in a November afternoon, my canoe was
sunk, my bowsman drowned, and the rest of our party—
rescued from a rock, upon which we should have frozen
in a few hours, by a boat sent from the little steamer
which had anchored under the islands—were made the
welcome and thankful guests of her kind hearted captain.
The loss of life by drowning on the Ottawa is often fright-
ful. Ina prosperous year about ten thousand men are
afloat on the loose timber, or in frail canoes, and as many
as eighty lives have been lost in a single spring. The
strongest swimmer has in broken water no more chance
than a child. Some of the eddies in high water become
whirl-pools, tearing a bark canoe into shreds and engulf-
ing every soul in it.

From the “ Chenaux,” or “ Snows,” as the lumbermen
call the rapid, the river is navigable as far as Portage du
Fort, a distance of six miles. Here the highlands close
in upon both sides, and many beautiful islands are
encountered, one of which is remarkable as having every
tree upon it blasted by lightning, an effect ascribed to
the presence of magnetic ore which has been found in
considerable quantities on the adjacent shore. Portage
du Fort is the present head of steam navigation on the

THE OTTAWA. 49

Ottawa. A few miles above this point the river, fora dis-
tance of about twenty-five miles, is divided by the Calumet
Island, into two channels. In one of these, the northern
channel, called the “ Calumet Chenail,” the fall is concen-
trated so that it is navigable for the greater portion of its
length, while the southern or Rocher Fendu Chenail is
interrupted by scattered rapids. From the head of the Calu-
met Chites to Portage du Fort, the river has a descent of
over one hundred feet; a portage road seven miles in
length evades all the obstructions, and the voyageur is
again embarked in his canoe—in which he may continue
about forty miles before he is arrested by rapids.

The Ottawa River from Portage du Fort to the head of
the Calumet Falls is exceedingly beautiful. The Rocher
Fendu Lake—where the two channels which form the
Calumet Islands reunite—surrounded by lofty banks and
enriched by numerous thickly wooded islands—which:
offer just sufficient obstruction to produce a ripple in each
narrow pass, and, farther on, a beautifully marbled
surface which ladies would pronounce a veritable moigé—
has been compared by enthusiastics to Avoca :—

‘‘The vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet.”

To the quiet picturesque beauty of this scene the wild
grandeur of the Calumet affords an admirable contrast.
Here the Ottawa leads off the dance with a furious leap,
dashing against the granite rocks until the dark water is
converted into a caldron of milk-white foam, fearful yet
fascinating to look upon,—then, as if ashamed of its im-
petuosity, it descends by a succession of aqueous ter-
races, in deep and stately volume, and winds up with a
reeling rapid at the foot. Until the last two or three
years the Calumet was the route of the Upper Ottawa
lumbermen and the voyageur, but recently an overland
route has been established by an energetic forwarder,
to Pembroke, the principal point on the Allumette Lake,
which reduces the distance to about one-half of that of
the circuitous route by the river. This route leaves the

Ottawa upon the south shore opposite Portage du Fort, and
G

50 LECTURE ON

by means of a plank road communicates with Muskrat
Lake, on which something intended for a steamer is
placed, which descending this lake and its outlet
approaches within a few miles of Pembroke.

Pembroke is a thriving settlement at the lower end of
Upper Allumette Lake, about eighty miles above Bytown
by land route but nearly one hundred by the river. A
portion of the Allumette Lake is discharged by a narrow
channel on the north which thus forms the Allumette
Island. The voyageurs embark in their canoes at the
head of the Grand Calumet Falls, and shortly after passing
the upper end of the Island of that name, enter Coulonge
Lake—a beautiful sheet of water partially encircled, in the
back ground, by an amphitheatre of hills. Here is Fort
Coulonge, at the mouth of the tributary of that name,
which is the first post of the Hudson Bay Company on
the Ottawa above Lachine. Leaving the Coulonge
Lake we ascend the river, with bold bluffs and a beautiful
grove of Norway pines on our left, and soon reach the lower
point of the Allumette Island, where the lumber men for
Pembroke and the Pittowawa turn to the left and portag-
ing Pacquet rapids, pass through the lower Allumette
Lake—carry their canoes over the Allumette rapids, and
thus reach Pembroke. The voyageur and lumbermen
for the “Deep River,” however, continue on northward
of Allumette Island, and dragging up the Isleites rapids
make their first portage at Culbute—forty miles from the
Grand Calumet—where the canoes are lifted over a natural
wall of rock, when they are again loaded for another forty
miles of uninterrupted navigation. Passing up the Culbute
Chenail and sheltered by the numerous islands with
which the Upper Allumette Lake is studded, the canoes
escape detention from the wind and sea of the Pembroke
route, and reach Fort William, the second post of the
Hudson Bay Company. Fort William is at the foot of
the “Deep River,” a portion of the Ottawa so called,
because rafts with 100 fathoms of chain have been unable
to find anchorage init. This remarkable reach of the

THE OTTAWA. 51

Ottawa resembles the Saguenay. Abouta mile in width,
with high but sloping and well-wooded banks on the
south, and a bold, naked chain of rocks rising 600 to 800
feet over the water on the north shore, it is so straight
that a cannon ball, if projected with sufficient force, would
follow the ice for the whole distance of five-and-twenty
miles. One remarkable cliff, the Oiseaux rock, rises a
bare, perpendicular and apparently overhanging wall,
nearly eight hundred feet in height, returning a magnifi-
cent echo to the canoe song of the passing voyageurs.
Upon the outermost point of the highest peak stands a
solitary dwarf pine, which, diminished by the great
height, appears by the moon’s misty light not unlike the
short but substantial figure of an Esquimaux maiden;
and tradition or imagination has attached to the spot
a story of the Squaw’s Leap ; how that an Indian woman
took advantage of the impetus afforded (by heavy bodies
falling freely through a given space) the more speedily
to rejoin the object of her affections on the happy hunting
grounds of the bright Spirit Land.

The Deep River leads us to the Rapids of the Deux
Joachims, where the Ottawa begins to assume a wild
and barren character. Naked rocks, immense deposits
of boulders, the small grey pine and the moose deer
lichen—or tripe de roche—give indications of a country
unfavourable to agriculture. The Joachim rapids have
about twenty feet descent, and have been made navigable
for timber by Government works which are the highest up
of any upon the Ottawa; a little blasting has been done
about twenty miles above this point, at the Rocher Capi-
taine, where there is a fall of about forty feet. I have no per-
sonal acquaintance with the Ottawa above Rocher Capi-
taine, but it has been surveyed by Mr. Logan as high as
Lake Temiscamang, upon the main stream, and as far as
Lake Nipissing, upon the Huron Route ; and to this survey
we are indebted for all the reliable information we have
of the Ottawa above the Deep River.

About fifty miles above the navigable reach of the Deep

52 LECTURE ON

River, a tributary enters the Ottawa from the south, called
the Matteawan, at the mouth of which there is a post of the
Hudson Bay Company. This is the point where the voya-
geurs for Superior, Red River, and the Rocky Mountains
leave the Ottawa. Between the Matteawan and the Deep
River the Ottawa flows ina narrow rocky bed, with strong
currents and frequent rapids, having a total fall of about
120 feet, and without sufficient valley or margin for the im-
provement of the navigation; whilst the sudden and heavy
freshets to which it is exposed, when the neighbouring
valleys are emptied of their winter accumulations of
snow, would render the use of the main stream by means of
locks and dams exceedingly precarious, as well as ruin-
ously expensive.

The canoes for Superior ascend the whole length of the
Matteawan (about forty miles) to its sources, which are
thirty-five feet above the level of Lake Nipissing, and 170
feet above the Ottawa at the mouth of the Matteawan. A
portage of three-fourths of a mile transfers them from the
waters which pass Bytown to those which flow over the
Falls of Niagara, and crossing Lake Nipissing they enter
the French river, which, with a length of fifty-five miles
and a fall of eighty-four feet, drops them into Lake Huron,
—the distance of this route, between the Ottawa and Lake
Huron, being about 120 miles ; making the whole distance
from Montreal to the mouth of French River on Lake Hu-
ron, about four hundred and fifty miles, or longer than the
railway route from Montreal wid Kingston, Toronto and
Lake Simcoe to Nottawasaga Bay. The total rise and fall
upon the Ottawa route between Lachine and Lake Huron
is about 750 feet—or upwards of 200 feet greater than
that by the St. Lawrence and Welland Canals.

Referring back to our description of the Ottawa above
Bytown we see that between that point and the Deep River,
the Ottawa may be said to be divided into four navigable
reaches separated by rapids requiring canals of different
lengths. These may be called the

THE OTTAWA.

Chaudiére, with a lockage of........... 60 feet.

Chats, do do cvccccceeres 50 feet,

Coulonge, do 110 feet.

Allumette, do

This lockage is greater than that of the six St. Law-
rence Canals between Montreal and Kingston, the cost
of which, when completed, will be about a million and a
half of pounds. The Ottawa is a river exposed to greater
changes of level than the St. Lawrence, and nearly all
the required excavation will be solid rock, chiefly gran-
ite instead of the soft limesone of the latter. The cost of
extending the navigation of the Ottawa from Bytown to
Pembroke, considering the difficulties of access, the cost
of supplies, the inevitable importation of food, and the
probable future rate of wages, as compared with the high-
ly favourable circumstances under which the St. Law-
rence Canals were constructed, must considerably exceed
a million of money, whereas the eighty-five miles of rail-
way could be built, even at official prices, for a much less
sum. If the Chats Lake be the desired point of access,
it can be reached from the head of navigation at Bytown
by a railway, for at least as small a sum as the Canal
would cost, and what comparison can there be with the
facilities to be afforded by a railway, working not only in
summer, but in winter, the very time when the lumber
trade most requires facilities of transport.

Continuing up to the Ottawa from the mouth of the
Matteawan, the river preserves its rugged character for
about twelve miles, when the lake-like features again
appear. Twelve miles above the Matteawan, after ascend-
ing three rapids with thirty feet fall, we enter the Seven-
League lake which is separated by the Long Sault rapid,
(falling forty-eight ft.) from Lake Temiskeamang, a navi-
gable sheet of water sixty-seven miles in length, varying
from six miles to one-fourth of a mile in width. Beyond
this lake the Ottawa is unsurveyed. The river comes
from the eastward and is said by the Indians to take
its rise about 250 miles beyond Lake Temiskeamang,

54 LECTURE ON

with the Saguenay and St. Maurice, from a connected
chain of lakes occupying the “height of land,” the
waters of which flow into all of those rivers as well as
into Hudson’s Bay. Two large lakes called the Grand
Lake and the Lake of the Fifteen Portages, between the
sources of the Ottawa and Lake Temiskeamang, have
been examined by gentlemen attached to the Hudson’s
Bay Company, and are represented upon Bouchette’s
map.

Upon the Lower Ottawa the portages are improved
and teams are employed to haul the loads brought up in
the canoes, but in the upper districts all the labour is
performed by men. The flour and pork for these latter
points are put up in half-barrels and carried upon the hips,
sustained by a broad band called a “ tump-line,” which
passes across the forehead, thus leaving both hands free
to aid the staggering and wearied voyageur in clamber-
ing up the rocky steeps with which most portages abound.

Having fortunately got to the end (or rather the begin-
ning) of the River, I proceed to speak of the chief feature
of the country, the Lumber trade. This trade you are
aware is one of the great staples of Canada :—the value
of our exports of timber and lumber is second only to that
of our breadstuffs, and in consideration of the large amount
of tonnage allured by the former to Quebec, this trade
may be said to exercise a greater influence over our com-
merce than any other. I do not propose to weary you
with statistics, but rather to describe the mode by which
atrade of such importance is carried on, to give you a
slight episode of shanty life, or something of the adven-
tures of a stick of timber.

The first step necessary for a lumberman is to secure
his limits, which is done by an application for a license
to cut timber on Crown lands at a certain stumpage.
The next is a more common but less easy one in other
matters, viz :— raising the wind.” If you have a little
property, you will finda class of gentlemen known
among lumbermen as the big bourgeots, (which is the

THE OTTAWA. 55

synonyme of boss,) who will advance you, at least to the
value of your property, what are called supplies, in order
that you may indulge in your propensities for specula-
tion. Your supplier gives you provisions and clothing
for your men, axes, ropes, augers, anchors and cables,
and a little cash, for which he charges a sort of premium
of insurance over ordinary profits. At the same time
you are privileged to run into debt as much elsewhere
as you can, provided always that no other person
receives a prior mortgage on your timber. When your
timber reaches Quebec (if you survive that stage) it is
consigned to your supplier who sells it for you, for
which trouble he only charges the usual commission of
five per cent. Your men stick like leaches to the raft,
until they are paid off. Your supplier then strikes the
balance, which he either hands to you or demands from
you, according to the price of timber and your own man-
agement. If you have understood your business and
attended to it, and if white pine is “up,” that is, worth
about 74d..per foot, or if your supplier will hold on to
it for you when it is “down,” and does not sell it to
himself, despite all the other drawbacks, you may return
from Quebec with a broad cloth suit, a gold watch, new
hat and a brass mounted portmanteau. If otherwise, as
you will find the place rather hot, you will prefer a linen
wrapper, and decline being encumbered with much bag-
gace, If you are fortunaie enough to have acquired
ex. erience, and a capital of £1,000 or so, and are wise
enough to make no more timber than you can get to
market without the aid of suppliers, you are on the high
road to fortune, and your success is certain. But the
rock on which many a lumberman has split, or techni-
cally speaking, the “jam” on which he has been “ picked
up,” is, a rule of three estimate of his profits. If he has
been fortunate enough to clear £500 from one raft made
with borrowed money, he undertakes two or three the
next year, in the hope of doubling or trebling his profits.
He thus doubles his liabilities, and sooner or later the
supplier has him.

56 LECTURE ON

Having secured the limits and established the credit,
the next step is to despatch a canoe with half a dozen
men and some scythes to cut the wild hay on the Beaver
meadows, and secure it during the low water season,—
to be afterwards hauled, when the meadows are frozen,
as winter provender for the teams employed in draw-
ing the timber. No timber limits are without water
—for it is by water alone that the timber can reach its
market, and wherever there is or has been water, there
you are sure to find Beaver meadows.

Beaver meadows are small prairies overflown by every
freshet, composed of deep beds of vegetable matter and
detritus, over which there is no other vegetation than a
coarse grass which horned cattle tolerate but which
few horses approve of. They are evidently formed by
ancient Beaver dams, the ponds above which have in
time become silted up, inasmuch as they form cesspools
arresting all the materials brought down by water in
hilly districts. The Beaver thus crowded out of one
pond forms a new one in a new locality, and thus the
frequency of these meadows—one or more of which is
found upon almost every stream which is not too large
for a Beaver’s engineering resources.

One cannot fail to be struck with admiration and
astonishment on visiting the haunts of the beaver, nor
can we wonder that the red men should place him at the
head of animal creation, or make a Manitou of him,
when Egypt, the mother of the Arts, worshipped such
stupid and disgusting Deities. Whether you call it
instinct, or whether it is to be called reason, one thing is
certain, that if half of humanity were as intelligent, as
provident, as laborious and as harmless as the beaver,
ours would be a very different world from what it is.

The beaver is the original lumberman and the first
of hydraulic engineers. Simple and unostentatious, his
food is the bark of trees and his dwelling—a mud cabin
the door of which is always open but under water—
conditions which secure retirement and are favourable to

THE OTTAWA. 57

cool contemplation. The single object of his existence
being to secure bark enough for himself and family, one
would suppose there would not be much difficulty in
that ;—but as neither beaver nor any other animals,
except man, are addicted to works of supererogation, we
may be sure that the former in all his laborious arrange-
ments—and those too which alter the face of nature to such
an important degree—does no more than is absoli ely
necessary for him to do. Cast in an inhospitable climate,
nearly the whole of his labor is for the purpose of laying
in his necessary winter supplies, and water is the only
medium by which he can procure and preserve these.
Too highly civilized for a nomadic life he builds perma-
nently, and does not quit his habitation until driven from
it, like other respectable emigrants, by stern necessity.
We cannot better illustrate the habits of this interesting
animal than by accompanying a beaver family, on some
fine evening in May, in search of a new home. The
papa beaver, with his sons and sons-in-law, wife, daugh-
ters and daughters-in-law, and it may be grand children,
sallies forth “ prospecting” the country for a good location
—?. e. a stream of easy navigation, and having an abun-
dant supply of their favorite food, the silver birch and
poplar, growing as near the river as possible. Having
selected these “ limits,’ the next step is to place their
dwelling so as to command the greatest amount of food.
For this purpose they go as far below the supplies as the
character of the stream will permit. A pond of deep:
still water being an indispensible adjunct to their dwell-
ing, this is obtained by the construction of a dam, and
few engineers could select a site to produce the required
result so efficiently and economically. The dam and
dwelling are forthwith commenced, the materials em-
ployed in both being sticks, roots, mud and stones, the
two former being dragged by the teeth, the latter carried
between the four paws and the chin. If the dam is
extensive, whole trees are gnawed down, the largest of

which are of the diameter of an ordinary stove pipe, the
H

aa Pr uatnarmentany te

58 LECTURE ON

stump being left standing about eighteen inches above the
ground, and pointed like a crayon. Those trees which
stand upon the bank of the stream they contrive to fall
into the water as cleverly as the most experienced wood-
man: those which are more distant, are cut up by their
teeth into pieces which can be dragged to the water.
These trees and branches are floated down to the site of
the dam, where they are dragged ashore and placed so
that the tops shall be borne down by the current, and
thus arrest the descending detritus and form a strong and
tight dam. Critical parts are built up “ by hand,” the
sticks and mud when placed receiving a smart bio?
from the beaver’s tail, just as a bricklayer settles ws
work with the handle of his trowel. The habitation or
hut of the beaver is almost bomb-proof; rising like a
dome from the ground on the margin of the pond, and
sometimes six or eight feet in thickness at the crown.
The only entrance is from a level of three or four feet
under the water of the pond. These precautions are
necessary, because, like all enterprising animals, the
beaver is not without enemies. The wolverine, who is
as fond of beaver tail as an old nor’wester, would walk
into his hut, if he could only get there,—but having the
same distaste for water as the cat, he must forego the
luxury. It is not, however, for safety that the beaver
adopts the submarine communication with his dwelling,
although it is for that he restricts himself to it. The same
necessity which compels him to build a dam, and thus
create a pond of water, obliges him to maintain com-
munication with that pond when the ice is three feet
thick upon its surface. Living upon the bark of trees,
he is obliged to provide a comparatively great bulk for
his winter’s consumption; and he must secure it at the
season when the new bark is formed and before it com-
mences to dry; he must also store it up where it will
not become frozen or dried up. He could not reasonably
be expected to build a frost-proof house large enough to
contain his family supply, but if he did, it would wither,

THE OTTAWA. 59

and lose its nutriment; therefore, he preserves it in
water. But the most remarkable evidence of his instinct,
sagacity, or reason, is one which I have not seen men-
tioned by naturalists. His pond we have seen must be
deep, so that it will not freeze to the bottom, and so that
he can communicate with his food and his dam, in case
of any accidents to the latter requiring repairs: but how
does he keep his food—which has been floated down to
his pond—from floating, when in it, and thus becoming
frozen in with the ice? I said that in gnawing down a
tree the top of the stump was left pointed like a crayon:
—the fallen tree has the same form—for the beaver cuts
like a woodman, wide at the surface and meeting in an
angle at the centre, with this distinction, the four legged
animal does his work more uniformly, cutting equally
al! around the log—while the two legged one cuts only
from two opposite sides. Thus every stick of provender
eut by the animal is pointed at both ends, and when
brought opposite his dwelling he thrusts the pointed
ends into the mud bottom of his pond sufficiently firm
to prevent their being floated out, at the same time
placing them in a position in which the water has the
least lift upon them; while be carefully apportions his
different lengths of timber to the different depths of
water in his pond, so that the upper point of none of
them shall approach near enough to the surface to be
caught by the winter ice.

When the family are in comfortable circumstances, the
winter supply nicely cut and stored away, the dam tight,
and no indications of a wolverine in the neighbourhood,
the patriarch of the hut takes out the youthful greenhorns
to give them lessons in topographical engineering ; and
in order to try the strength of their tails encourages them
to indulge in amateur damming. The beaver works
always by night, and to “ work like a beaver” is a signi-
ficant term for a man who not only works earnestly and
understandingly—but one who works late and early—a
species of “ mud-lark” not afraid of soiling his hands.

60 LECTURE ON

From what has been said it will be readily seen that
the maintenance of the dam is a matter of vital import-
ance to the beaver. Some say that the pilot beaver sleeps
with his tail in the water in order to be warned of the
first mishap to the dam; but as there is no foundation
for such a cool assertion it may be set down as a very
improbable tale. The Indians avail themselves of this
well known solicitude to catch them: having broken the
dam, the risk is immediately perceived by the lowering
of the water in the hut—and the beaver, sallying forth to
repair the breach, are slaughtered in the trenches.

As the supply of food in the vicinity of the dam
becomes diminished the beaver is obliged to go higher up
the stream, and more distant from its banks, to procure
his winter stores; and this necessity gives rise to fresh
displays of his lumbering and engineering resources. In
consequence of the distance, and the limited duration of
the high water period favourable to transport, the wood
is collected into a sort of raft, which, a lumberman asserts,
is manned by the beaver and steered by their tails, in the
same manner as Norway rats are known to cross streams
of water. When the raft grounds, forthwith a temporary
dam is thrown across the stream below the “jam,” by
which the waters are raised, and the raft floated off,
and brought down to the dam, which is then torn sud-
denly away, and the small raft thereby flashed over the
adjoining shallows.

Numerous and interesting are the characteristics of this
denizen of the Ottawa; but if we pursue the subject any
farther we shall be as long in getting out of the woods as
the stick of timber whose history we have undertaken to
give.

The beaver hay being secured and stacked at such an
elevation as will prevent its being floated off by the au-
tumnal rise of water, it is left there until the frost makes
a smooth firm road upon which it can be hauled to the
shanties. The hay cutters then proceed to the timber grove
to make ready for the choppers, hewers and scorers, who

THE OTTAWA. 61

follow later in the autumn, bringing with them sufficient
supplies to last until the snow and ice give access, by the
only possible road, to the scene of operations. Most lum-
bermen deposit a stock of provisions during the winter
to provide for the commencement of the following year’s
operations ;—these are left locked up in the shanties, sub-
ject only to the risk of a fire in the woods, or the occa-
sional investigations of the black bear, who descends by
the chimney, eats all he can lay paws on, and like other
people often finds it easier to get into a scrape than to get
out of one, for on the arrival of the avengers he is des-
patched, and made to supply the place of the provisions
he has so feloniously appropriated.

The “ limits” being extensive—generally one hundred
square miles,—experienced scouts, mostly Indians or
bois brulés (half breeds) are employed to seek out the
groves. These men, of whom Cooper’s “ Leather Stock-
ing” is a type, start out with their axes, guns, snow
shoes and some pork and biscuit——camp wherever
night overtakes them, and explore the length and breadth
of the limit,—or, the unconceded territory if in search of
new ones,—examine the different streams and report upon
their capabilities for floating out the timber, the facilities
for hauling, and what stream is best to haul into. The
country being unsurveyed, they, with the aid of native
plumbago, rapidly delineate on a piece of birchen bark
the relative positions of the different streams, lakes, por-
tages and mountains, and groves of red or white pine—
with a degree of accuracy, and due regard to proportion
and distance, which in such self-taught draughtsmen is
really marvellous.

When the grove is selected, the shanty is commenced ;
this is built of logs, nearly square, the fire being on a
raised hearth, formed of clay enclosed ina single frame of
logs, and placed in the middle ; a longitudinal opening
in the roof, over the fire, forms what serves for a chimney ;
a double tier of berths all round the interior gives sleep-
ing accommodation ; a wooden crane renewed when

62 LECTURE ON

burnt through, swings over the fire and suspends the
family pot, tea and bake kettle. The fire, like that of
a smelting furnace, is never allowed to go out, and the
tea kettle sings perpetually over it. Without any appa-
rent concert—by a sort of instinct-—one after another of the
occupants of the surrounding bunkers awakes from his
slumbers, turns out, throws a log on the fire, takes a few
whiffs of his pipe, eats about a pound of bread and pork,
drinks something less than a quart of tea, and turns in again.
Occasionally some troubled sleeper arises to join the fire-
man, when a midnight confab is carried on, sometimes for
hours, without remonstrance from the double tier of snor-
ers. The morning toilet is simple and expeditious, con-
sisting in drawing on the boots or moccasins—some long
stretches, broad yawns, and a shake which a mastiff
might envy ; after which a few whiffs from the pipe as
a coup @appetit, and our heroes are ready for breakfast.
The shanties are conducted upon strictly temperance
principles, a virtue which is the offspring of necessity :
all the available means of transport to regions so difficult
of access being required for the necessaries of life,—
amongst which whiskey cannot be ranked—the philoso-
phie children of the wood know that it is of no use to
provide a store of grog unless they enjoyed the five sto-
machs of a camel; they therefore patriotically determine
to do all their drinking in Quebec and Bytown, and en
route to their winter homes; and certainly many of them
do contrive that their forced winter deprivation shall not
have the effect of reducing their annual contribution to
the excise below that of the rest of the population. And
if there be any deficiency on this score, it is more than
made up by their consumption of tea. Shanty tea is as
unlike the delicate infusion over which ladies are said
to imbibe such nice discrimination of character, as the
oil of peppermint is to the essence ; indeed it would be
strange if throats which had been lubricated with Cana-
dian brandy in summer, and cooled by winter exposure
to a mountain atmosphere thirty degrees below zero,

THE OTTAWA. 63

could tolerate the effeminate trash which we drink.
Instead of an infusion, it is, like patent medecines, a
double distilled, highly concentrated, compound extract
of the’Chinese shrub. It is, in fact, a tea soup, and has
been described by one of themselves as “ strong enough
to float an axe.” Like castor oil, it is “ cold drawn,”
and then boiled—the process being to fill the kettle with
cold water, cram as much tea on the top as the cover
can force in, and then place it on the fire ; as it is poured
out, fresh additions of tea and cold water are added, as to
a cupola, until it becomes necessary to cool off in order
to remove the “slag.” The tin basins out of which it is
drunk are well greased by previous use for fried pork
and pea soup, so that the tea does not adhere to the sides,
a lubrication which probably prevents any corrosion.
The taste of this tea is alkaline, and it has a decided cop-
pery flavor, a strong imitation of that of the “ native”
oyster. An interesting metaphysical question presents
itself in connection with this subject: strong tea is gene-
rally presumed to be injurious to the nervous system ;
indeed I have met ladies who have declared that they
had lost their nerves from hard drinking—of tea of course
—in consequence of which their daily exercise was in a
rocking chair. Again it is known that where salt pork
without vegetables is the principal food, that dreadful
disease the scurvy is generated. Yet on the Ottawa
there are thousands of men who drink their pound of tea
per week, and some of them double this quantity, and
eat salt pork four times per day; and if you have any
misgivings about the nerves of one of those fellows, just
take hold of him and try to double up his back. My
own theory is, that the tea acts as a sort of alcoholic cut
to the fat pork, which latter in turn counteracts the ener-
vating effect of the “acid,” by absorbing its deleterious
properties.

Every thing being prepared, the work of felling the
trees is commenced. White pine is found in groves,
many of the trees of which are unsound, although none

64 LECTURE ON

but a connoisseur would detect this failing ; the lumber-
men, however, know the impostors by certain suspicious
knots, as readily as a detective discovers a member of
the swell mob, and are careful not to the waste their
strength on such gay deceivers. The best white pine is
obtained on undulating ground, from isolated trees inter-
mixed with other timber. Red pine, on the contrary,
grows in unmixed groves, on level plains of great extent ;
and I know of no more majestic or impressive spectacle
in nature than one of those interminable groves of what
is often, but improperly, called ‘* Norway” pine. A level
sandy plain, clean as a well kept park, stretches out
before, behind and around you, out of which thousands of
smooth straight reddish brown columns shoot up, forty
to fifty feet in height, before a leaf or branch is seen—then,
spreading out their magnificent evergreen capitals, they
completely roof in one of the grandest of nature’s temples.
Between their well braced pedestals you may gallop your
horse in every direction, or drive a fancy sleigh or pony
pheeton without interruption frora underbrush, morass, or
the trunks of fallen trees. Fire which has destroyed
more white pine than the axe of the lumberman, can get
no footing in the red pine plains; here there is no under-
brush, no fallen trunks, no deciduous hardwood, not even
moss, to feed the devouring element. In ten thousand
trees you will not see a diseased trunk, a decayed branch,
or an up-rooted pine. In winter the scene is perfect—
the milk-white floor, and the dark green ceiling upheld
by thousands'of copper colored columns—receding in beau-
tiful perspective until lost in an imperfect and variegated
horizon—afford a spectacle of woodland magnificence
which even the Ottawa cannot surpass.

The lumberman lays out a main road from the stream
into which he hauls, through the heart of his grove,
and if this is scattered, branch roads are required.
A cheaper class of men, generally the ‘ greenhorns,’ are
employed as road cutters. Three men and a cook
form a ‘ gang ;’—two cut down the tree, line and score it,

THE OTTAWA. 65

that is, split off the outer slabs so as to make it four-sided
—and the third, the hewer, who is an artist in his way,
smooths it with the broad-axe true and even as if planed.

In squaring large trees much of the finest timber is
blocked off by the scorers and lost, except to the bears,
who come along the ensuing summer and give the blocks
a skirl in the air, whereupon the bark cracks off by the faii
and the unfortunate worms who have loosened it are con-
verted into bears meat. These prompt handmaids of
decay have a ‘ harder time of it? in the forest than in the
ground. If they discover an expiring tree they have
hardly made themselves comfortable before the Wood-
pecker is heard making frequent calls, which, however
unwelcome, are persisted in with all the importunity of
an unmitigated bore. If they take refuge under a score
block Bruin plays skittles with their habitation—and
they are done brown.

As atrack cannot be made to each tree which has been
cut, the sticks of timber are drawn to the main road ;

this is calied “ straightening out,’’—and as horses are too
restive for such work it is done by oxen. These patient
useful brutes will wind between the trees up to their
shoulders in snow, almost twisting their tails and necks
off in obedience to the yells of their drivers :—the whole
scene forcibly recalling to mind Longfellow’s magnificent
lines—

Long ago,

In the deer-haunted forests of Maine,
When upon mountain and plain,

Lay the snow,

They fell—those lordly pines—

Those grand majestic pines.

Mid shouts and cheers, the jaded steers
Panting beneath the goad,

Dragged down the weary winding road
Those captive kings, so straight and tall,
To be shorn of their streaming hair,
And naked and bare—

To feel the stress and the strain

Of the wind and the reeling main,
Whose roar

Would remind them forever more

Of their native fore«{: ‘sey should not see again!

i

66 LECTURE ON

The timber is drawn out upon the ice the melting of
which with that of the surrounding snow, in March and
April, swells the volume of the stream sufficiently to float
it into the larger branches and tributaries and thence
into the Ottawa, provided the tide be taken at the flood.
On the breaking up of the ice great activity is dis-
played, and additional force is required for the start and
the “drive.” Ifthe stream in which the timber is hauled
out is not navigable for cribs, ‘ driving” is resorted to—
the loose sticks with the ‘ floats’ and ‘ traverses ’ for rafting
it are allowed to float down, followed by the lumbermen
in canoes and along shore—whose duty it is to bring up
the stragglers which may be loitering in an eddy,
grounded on a shoal, or have been caught by an over-
hanging branch. When crib navigation is reached a
boom is rapidly thrown across the stream, by which all
the timber is stopped and formed into “ cribs,” containing
about twenty pieceseach. These are formed by placing
two round logs, called ‘ floats,’ about twenty-four feet apart,
and bringing the squared timber between them ; across the
whole, four or five rather large sized poles called “ tra-
verses”’ are laid and pinned at each end to the floats. The
square timbers are thus enclosed and prevented from spread-
ing, without being depreciated by auger holes or tree-nails.
They are not, however, prevented from moving backward
or forward and thus escaping. To secure this, four heavy
sticks called loading timbers—generally those which are
too crooked to fit well between the floats—ave dragged on
top of the traverses and by their weight sink the floating
timbers lower in the water; the friction thus created
against the under side of the traverses (arising from the
floatation of the timbers which are in the water) effectually
prevents the latter from moving backward or forward,
while the loading timbers are fairly shipped high and
dry and have no tendency to move. In this simple
manner, without any injury being done to the manufac-
tured article, are formed the “ cribs,” one of which will
carry all the provisions and many men in safety down
any navigable rapid or crib slide.

THE OTTAWA. 67

On many of the tributaries large lakes many miles in
length and width must be passed; where these occur
all the timber must be formed into a raft containing
generally about fifty cribs. The cribs are lashed toge-
ther by means of ‘ withs;’ these are formed by taking
young birchen trees about the size of whip stalks and
fastening their butts firmly, by means of wedges, into an
an auger hole bored into a stump or fallen tree, then com-
mencing at the points and twisting them (just as but-
chers make a screw propeller of an ox’s tail when urging
him into the slaughter house) until the whole of the fibre
is separated and the twig becomes as pliant as a rope.
These withs possess great strength—are easily replaced—
and save the cost and transport of ropes or chains. The
raft being ready, all hands, with provisions, cook and
cookery, are embarked—the anchor and cable are ship-
ped, and if the wind is fair, sail is set. If the wind is
foul, patience and pork are required ; if it be calm, there
is always some current through every lake and this will
bring the raft through ; but if a head or side wind springs
up when fairly out in the lake, the anchor must be thrown,
else the raft would be blown ashore, or into some bay
where it would be imprisoned for weeks. When the
lake is crossed perhaps the character of its outlet is
such that the raft must be broken up into single sticks,
and “ the drive” be again resorted to, until other points
are reached where the boom, the floats and traverses,
withs, sails, and anchors are successively required.
The Ottawa, from Lake Temiskeamang to its mouth, is
a crib navigation, but in this distance it is necessary to
dissolve the raft into cribs about a dozen times in order
to run the different rapids and slides.

If the spring is cold and backward the snows melt
gradually, and the water steals away without filling the
streams sufficiently to bring out the timber. The whole
year’s labor is thus lost from the timber “ sticking” as
it is called, unless heavy rains should come to the rescue ;

6S LECTURE ON

but even these may not oecur until after the timber has
been abandoned, and their effect may be over before it can
again be reached. Additional force is required to bring
out the timber—over and above those engaged in making
it—and if this is not on the ground when the streams
open the golden opportunity is lost; and if brought on
too early the pork and tea must suffer. The price in
Quebee increases in proportion to the quantity which
“ sticks” and is unable to reach the market. The con-~
sequence is there is very little sympathy among lumber-
men, although necessity compels them often to “ drive’’
together. It is the interest of each that all other timber
but his own should be left behind. In “ driving,” the
greenhorns, as at a Court Martial, are first put forward ;
from sheer politeness, it is to be presumed,they are allowed
to “put through” the booms first,—their timber conse-
quently leads the van, it goes down, fills all the eddies,
occupies all the shoals, and the next timber, belonging
to the old birds, having no place to loiter in keevs the
channel through, and though last to start comes out the
first.

One of the disasters to which lumbermen are subjected
in driving their timber, and one which induces them to
go to great expense in forming a crib navigation where
it can be obtained, is what is called a “jam.” [I suppose
because it is made with currents and is very sticky. ]
When the “driving” eannot be controlled, or if the water
falls unexpectedly, certain shoals begin to “ pick up” the
timber, and stick after stick as it eomes down runs
under those already grounded, and with the current for
a power, acts as a lever in raising them above the water ;
in this manner the lifting and wedging continues until
many thousand pieces of timber are woven into a crow’s
nest, and raised perhaps thirty or forty feet above the
water. The “ jam” is frequently sustained by a single
stick, resting against a ledge of rock, whieh when cut
away will free the whole mass. “ Cutting away a
jam” is one of the most daring feats a lumberman can

THE OTTAWA. 69

perform. Like a forlorn hope it is left to volunteers.
The noble fellows who risk their lives to save their
employers from loss or ruin, bare their feet, strip
to the waist, tighten their girdles, and with head uncovered
and axe in hand leap upon the quivering timbers.
A rope, the end of which is held by their anxious but adimir-
ing comrades on the shore, is fastened round the waist.
Every blow of the axe is watched with intense anxiety,
and when the timber begins to yield—without waiting to
cut it through—the few favorable instants which intervene
while the crackling and crashing mass is preparing to
start are seized for escape. Flinging his axe into the
water and leaping from stick to stick of the moving
timber he reaches the land amid the cheers of his com-
rades—or, borne down by the moving forest his mangled
body in sorrowing silence is hauled ashore :—his
last burden has been borne—his last portage has been
made—the “ tump-line” will never again compress his
swollen and wearied temples—for he is drifting away
in the gloomy haze of that endless lake where none but
departing canoes are seen.

The transport of supplies to the shanties is the heaviest
charge upon the lumberman. Flour, before consumed,
costs him about $10 per barrel. Pork, $25 to $30. Oats, 5s.
to 6s. Hay, $30 to $40 per « a. Beaver hay costs about as
much as good hayinagric:. ‘aldistricts, but is only worth
half asmuch; and assome ‘ orses willnoteat it, lumbermen
are obliged to team up the cultivated hay at a charge for
transport about equal to two or three times its first cost.
In order to reduce these charges some enterprising lum-
bermen have opened winter roads to the back Townships
of Counties fronting on Lake Ontario. The pork and
flour consumed above Pembroke are now carried up
from Bytown, but the day cannot be far distant when

—__§ these articles will be brought in from the shores of Lake

Another great drawbatk-te-the advantageous prosecu-

tion of the trade is the want of roads and bridges. [na

70 LECTURE ON

country so thinly inhabited, where there are so many
unsold and unsurveyed public lands—and one which is
so cut up with large rivers, lakes, mountains, and swamps,
ii is impossible either for lumbering or municipal enter-
prise to construct the necessary roads or bridges. The
snow and ice give to the lumberman the only roads
and bridges to his distant limits; but these leave him
just at the period when he is in the greatest need of them.
The teams hired to haul his timber come from Glen-
garry and the Lower Ottawa—and as the distance is
great, if the snow disappears it takes them weeks to
return home ; and if the ice breaks up they must swim
their horses across the stream at the risk of losing them.
On the first appearance of a break up in March there is
a regular stampede amongst the teamsters—off they go,
perhaps leaving a great portion of the timber in the bush,
to be burned by fire before the next year’s drive.

The lumberman cannot bridge these streams—all their
capital and enterprise being required for improving the
character of the rivers for the passage of their timber.
Vast sums have been expended by individuals and firms,
in blasting rocks, and building dams, booms, slides, and
piers. From a parliamentary return, it appears that no
less than £150,000 have been expended by lumbermen,
almost all within the last ten years, in these improve-
ments.

On the other hand, the Government derived a revenue
from the Ottawa timber dues of £38,000 in 1852, and they
have expended about £50,000 in slides and other improve-
ments for the timber, which are almost the only paying
public works in Canada—the gross revenue in 1852, being
£9,682. Thus the revenue of 1852 has been nearly equal
to the whole expenditure upon the Ottawa, on account of
the timber. It is much to be regretted, that such good
claims as the Ottawa possess for a share of the Provincial
expenditure, should have been pressed with so little
judgment, and granted by Parliament with such an incor-
rect appreciation of what it really needs. Canals are cer-

THE OTTAWA. 41

tainly not required for a district which has neither roads
nor bridges, villages, manufactories, coal mines, wheat,
Hour, provisions, &c., for export—in fact, for a district
without traffic—if we except those supplies which can-
not reach the shanties unless at that season of the year
when canals are useless.

There is a good proportion of arable land on the south
side of the Ottawa above the Chats. The settlement of
this region by immigration is much slower than that part of
Canada west of Kingston, although from the demand for
every description of agricultural produce caused by the
lumber trade there is no better market for the farmer. A
slow process of settlement is going on from the ranks of
the lumberers ; every year a few of the provident among
this hardy race, having learned the way of the woods,
select some promising lot discovered in their wanderings,
take unto themselves wives, and permanently pitch their
tents there. This neglect of the Ottawa by settlers is the
result of the neglect of it by our Legislature, which has
passed laws to tax all private lands, through the agency
of the municipalities, for the general improvement—ex-
cepting their own. Parliament is the great proprietor on
the Upper Ottawa, and Parliament therefore should con-
tribute proportionally, or hand over its estate to commis-
sioners to be sold for the relief of the country as it is now
done in Ireland. The municipalities on the Upper Ottawa
have taxed themselves, for railway facilities, to three times
the extent in proportion to their means of any other mu-
nicipalities in the country; in fact they have taxed
themselves to an extent which none but men desperate
from hope deferred would ever think of doing. The
hopes of those who have undertaken to aid the munici-
palities in constructing these roads are based upon one
item of commerce, the transport of sawed lumber, and also
the carriage of the supplies which are now imported and
which will hereafter be required for the manufacture of
this article. But the immediate line of the railway will
alone be able to manufacture the lumber; the want of

72 LECTURE ON

good roads as feeders to the railway will cause the latter
to be a disappointment to the municipalities and to the
stockholders. (The municipalities have taxed themselves
too heavily for the main road—the railway—to be able to
build also the side roads.

The great want of the Ottawa is PopuLtation. The
Rideau Canal has not been able to remedy this, and the
Ottawa Canai will as signally fail in doing so. The
railways will in time remedy it, but even these to be
efficient must be treated as other highways. If you want
to increase the value of property ina street, to make it
most useful, you open it through, you make a thoroughfare
of it. The Ottawa even with railways will still be a cul
de sac. Whenaman goes two hundred miles up the
Ottawa, particularly if an intending settler or capitalist
seeking investment, he does not like to retrace his steps,
for at Pembroke he is only about 150 miles in a direct
line from Lake Simcoe, and at Armmprior he is only about
100 miles from Belleville. The tendency of the age is
to go-ahead ; no man likes “ to take the back track,” and I
have always failed in inducing strangers to go up to the
Ottawa because they said to me, “there is no way of
getting on.”

The Ottawa possesses within herself all the means
necessary for her own development, if we are only just
enough and generous enough to give her her own. The
public lands are a financial basis broad enough to work
out the development of the Ottawa, and it is not asking
too much that a portion of them should be set apart for
such a thorouzhly domestic purpose, when to those which
have, all has been given. Public ...arantee for railways,
plank and macadamized roads, bridges, and really useful
and much needed although still unproductive canals—all
have gone to the St. Lawrence.

The Congress of the United States has made large grants
of land to the Illinois Central and other roads—to routes
much less in need of public aid than the Ottawa. A grant of
public lands would secure a highway through the Ottawa

THE OTTAWA

and would be a necessary inducement to the construc-
tion of a railway. The local trade of such a railway
would be confined to the bringing out of sawn lumber
until the country became settled, which it would in a
measure become 'y the process of construction ; but the
means being at once secured of opening the road through
to Ports on Lake Huron, or in connection with the rail-
ways around Lake Simcoe, it would have a through
traffic which would sustain it until it became produc-
tive.

In conclusion,—no one can look upon the geographical
position of the Ottawa without becoming convinced that
unless there be some positive disqualification, it is a dis-
trict which ought not and cannot much longer remain a
wilderness. Those who have had such glimpses of it
as a trip up some of its beautiful tributaries afford, can
certify that when opened it will be second to no other
part of Canada inthe healthy character of its climate,
the fertility of its innumerable and well watered valleys,
the transparent purity of its trout filled lakes and gravelly
brooks; or in the magnificent panorama which is pre-
sented by mountain, flood, and plain—decked out with
ever-green and hardwood furring the sloping banks of
her golden lakes, and affording under the influence of
the autumnal frost one of the most gorgeous spectacles
under the sun. Nor can the day be far distant when
those valleys will be filled with their teeming thousands,
and the sheep and cattle on a thousand hills shall every
where indicate peace and progress—the happy homes of
a people whose mission it is to wage war only upon the
rugged soil and the gloomy forest, to cause the now
silent valleys to shout and sing, and to make the wilder-
ness blossom like the rose.

K